How to Print Mailing Labels from Excel (Address List Example)

Making and printing a mailing list is quite simple. 

But for beginners, it may feel a bit complicated especially with having to use two Microsoft apps, Excel and Word. 

Rest assured, it’s quite easy to do.

There are 4 steps you have to take to print mailing labels in Excel:

1. Prepare your worksheet
2. Make sure you have the necessary data
3. Mail Merging with Microsoft Word
4. Finishing & Merge

Before you start:

Throughout this guide, you need a data set to practice.

I’ve included one for you (for free).

Download it right below!

First things first:

Set up your worksheet properly. 

Getting the right data is tantamount to success in printing mailing labels.

Simply type the following in the first row of your spreadsheet (these are pretty much the regulars):

• First Name
• Last Name
• Street Address
• City
• State
• Zip Code

Begin encoding the necessary data. 

Making sure they are accurate and correct should be your top priority at this phase.

Avoid leaving blank cells in between as it may mess up with the merging later on.

Things to look out for:

1. Make your column name labels specific and clear. For example, “First Name”, “Last Name”, and “Address”.
2. Separate information. Make it as specific as it can get. It’s not recommended to put the first name and last name in a column. It’s better to put them into separate columns. 
3. Don’t leave blank cells in between your data. An empty row may mislead Word when merging later on.

Once you’re confident that you have accurate information, save the workbook on your preferred location.

Now, there will be a lot of back and forth on these next instructions.

But don’t worry, we’ll make sure it will still be easy to follow.

What you have to do next is open Microsoft Word on your computer.

Then, create a new blank document.

On the new document, click ‘Mailings’ from the tab list.

Click the ‘Start Mail Merge’ icon and select ‘Labels…’.

A window titled ‘Label Options’ will open.

On the ‘Label vendors’, select ‘Avery US Letter’.

On the ‘Product number’, select ‘5160 Address Labels’.

Press ‘OK’.

Now for the next step, click ‘Select  Recipients’ from the Ribbon and choose ‘Use an Existing List…’ from the options.

After that, find and click the workbook you saved earlier.

Once you find it, another window will open.

Assuming you have no other active sheets on your workbook, press ‘OK’.

If not, select the sheet containing the mailing list.

Afterward, your word document will look similar to the one shown below:

Once you got that, make sure your cursor is on the upper-right corner of the document.

Then, click ‘Address Block’ icon on the ‘Write & Insert Fields’ group on the Ribbon.

On the ‘Insert Address Block’ window, click ‘Match Fields…’ found on the bottom-right corner.

Of course, check if the fields were matched. 

If not, click the dropdown button on one of the entries and match it up with a row heading on your Excel file.

Press ‘OK’ once everything is ready.

You’ll get back to the previous window. Click ‘OK’ again.

The next step is to update the labels.

Click the ‘Update Labels’ icon from the ‘Write & Insert Fields’ group on the Ribbon.

To finish it up, click the ‘Finish & Merge’ icon at the ‘Finish’ group and select ‘Edit Individual Documents…’ from the options.

Make sure ‘All’ is selected and press ‘OK’.

Immediately, you’ll see the information printed on the document.

You can now go ahead and print your mailing labels.

The labels will be hard to cut without borders! ✂

As a bonus, we’ll show you how to add the borders quickly.

All you have to do is click the plus (+) icon on the upper-left side of the texts.

Now that the whole table is selected, click the ‘Border’ icon on the floating menu and click ‘All Borders’ from the options.

Immediately, you’ll see borders between the different address blocks.

Although daunting at first, creating print mailing labels in Excel is very easy to do. The part where you might have a few hiccups is during the merging with Microsoft Word.