Printing one label across a whole sheet in Labels by Zaweba

Not every label job is a mail merge. Sometimes you want forty identical return address stickers, a sheet of product labels for jars of chutney, or a page of name stickers for a child's school things. Labels by Zaweba has a print option for exactly that: one label repeated across a whole sheet, for as many sheets as you ask for.

The label is designed once, the same way as any other, and printing fills every position on the sheet with it. There is no need to make a dummy list of contacts or copy and paste the design forty times.

Setting it up

Design the label on the designer tab. Use fixed text for things that never change, such as your name and address or a product name, and add a logo, shapes or a barcode if the label needs them. Pick the label stock first, so the design is the right size: one of the built-in Avery UK sheets such as L7160, L7163 or L7651, or a custom sheet you have saved.

Then go to the printing side and choose the single label across a whole sheet option. Set how many sheets you want. The live preview shows every sheet exactly as it will print, so you can count the labels and check the design repeats cleanly before committing paper.

Using up a part-used sheet

Label sheets are expensive enough that nobody likes throwing half of one away. The start position lets the first sheet begin part-way down. Type the number of the first free label, or click it in the preview, and the labels already used are greyed out. Printing starts at that position and fills the rest of the sheet, then carries on to any further sheets from the top.

Labels are numbered across then down, the way they are printed on Avery sheets, so label 4 on a three-across sheet is the first one on the second row.

This pairs well with mail merge. If a batch of Christmas card labels finished partway down a sheet, fill the rest with return address labels instead of leaving it in the drawer.

Good jobs for a full sheet

Return address labels are the classic. Put your name and address on a small label, print a sheet or two, and you have a supply for parcels, letters and forms.

Product and price labels are another. A small business can design a label with the product name, a shape or two for colour and a barcode, then print a sheet whenever stock is made. Because barcodes are drawn as vectors, they stay sharp at any printer's resolution.

Name stickers for school uniform, lunch boxes and books work well on the smaller stocks, where you get many labels per sheet.

Checking before you print

Use the preview to confirm the start position and the number of sheets. If you are unsure whether the design lines up, export a PDF with label outlines switched on, or print onto plain paper and hold the page against a label sheet up to the light.

Printing goes through the normal Windows print dialog at actual size, never scaled. Make sure the printer's own scaling is off, and if labels drift slightly, use Print > Calibrate a printer to measure and correct that printer's offset once, for good.

Avoiding wasted sheets

Keep a full-sheet design to fixed text, pictures, shapes and codes. This option prints one label over and over, so it is for labels that are identical; when each label is different, use Print and merge with a group, selected contacts or a CSV file.

Check the stock setting matches the sheets in your printer. A design made for 21 labels per sheet will not fit a sheet of 14.

And save the design. A .ozl file keeps the label and its pictures together, so the next time you run out of return address labels it is two clicks to print another sheet.