How to print address labels
- Pick what you're printing. Mailing list puts a different address on each label (Christmas cards, wedding invitations, a club mailing). Return address puts your own address on every label, with an optional small picture.
- Choose your label sheet. The number is printed on the box. Each layout lists the product numbers that share it: 5160, 8160 and 18160 all use the same 30-per-sheet layout, for example.
- Add the addresses. Type them with an empty line between addresses, paste rows copied from Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or import a CSV file. The count under the box tells you how many it found.
- Check the preview. Every label is drawn where it will print, with the text already sized to fit. A label outlined in red has more text than fits even at 5 pt.
- Download the PDF and print it at 100%. In the print dialog choose Actual size or Scale 100%, and turn off Fit to page, which shrinks the page and moves every label.
Getting the labels to line up
Each built-in sheet uses the label positions measured from Avery's own blank PDF templates (downloaded from avery.com in October 2026): for 5160, three columns of 1 × 2⅝ inch labels starting half an inch from the top and 3/16 inch from the left, 2¾ inches apart. If your labels still come out a little off, the printer is shifting the page:
- Download the alignment test sheet and print it on plain paper. It draws every label's outline with a cross in the middle.
- Hold the print against a label sheet up to a window or a lamp. If all the outlines sit, say, 1/16 inch too far right, enter −0.0625 in Move right by (or −1.6 mm with millimetres) and print the test again.
- Shifts that grow toward the bottom of the page mean the printer is scaling the page: check the 100% setting rather than nudging.
- Feed label sheets one at a time through the manual tray if your printer has one; it keeps them straighter than the main tray.
Printing from a spreadsheet or contact list
Most address books and spreadsheet apps can export CSV. With a header row, the importer recognises the usual column names (Name or First and Last name, Company, Address or Street, Address 2 or Apt, City, State or Province, ZIP or Postcode, Country) and puts them in mailing order, with city, state and ZIP on one line in the US style. It also reads Google Contacts exports (the Address 1 columns) and Outlook exports (the Home columns, or Business when a contact has no home address). Files saved by Excel as plain CSV, CSV UTF-8 or Unicode Text keep their accents. Without a header, each column becomes one line of the label, in the order of the file. After an import the addresses appear in the box as text, so you can fix a typo or delete a row before printing.
Keeping a Christmas card list from year to year? Tick Remember my addresses on this device to keep the list in this browser, or use Save list as CSV to keep a copy in a file you can import next December.
Return address labels
Return labels are small: 5167 is ½ × 1¾ inches with 80 on a sheet, and 5195 is ⅔ × 1¾ inches with 60. Three or four short lines fit best, so shorten what you can (St, Ave, Apt) and leave out the country for mail inside it. Pick a picture to sit at the left (a house or an envelope all year, a tree or a snowflake for holiday cards, a leaf for autumn) and choose how many sheets to print: every label on them gets the same address. Larger sheets such as 5160 work too if you want bigger return labels.
Addressing tips
- USPS Publication 28 prefers uppercase letters on every line of the address block and a uniform left margin, so the ALL CAPITALS option and left alignment give the most machine-readable result. Lowercase is fine when it's easy to read.
- Put the recipient on the first line, then the street address, then city, state and ZIP; the country goes last on international mail.
- Used some labels already? Set Start at label to the first free one (or tap it in the preview) so a part-used sheet isn't wasted.
- Names in Latin, Greek or Cyrillic letters print with a font that covers them. Scripts such as Chinese or Arabic and emoji can't be drawn by the PDF font, and the page names the addresses that are affected.
- One very long line (a long street name with an apartment and building number) makes the whole label shrink to fit. If that takes it below 7 pt the page says so; tick Wrap long lines to break that line in two at 8 pt or more instead.
Avery® is a registered trademark of its owner. Meadow Tools isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Avery; product numbers are named only to say which label sheets these layouts fit.
Sending holiday cards to a group? The Secret Santa generator draws names with private links, the printable advent calendar fills December, and the printable calendar keeps track of the dates.