printing envelopes

users
#1

A few months ago, I asked about printing envelopes.  All I got was explaining how LO does it.  Finally someone said LO only prints one envelope for one document, not 100 envelopes with a custom return address.

well, i found the solution, in a program that I have been running for about 2 years with great success, glabels.  instead of a label, there is an option for a #10 envelope.  glabels works great.  I have been using it to print large mailing labels on 9x12 document envelopes.

hope this helps someone else,

john

#2

hello.
i am glad that hear your issue is resolved.
God bless you!

#3

Thank John for your feedback, it would be useful for me in the future,

Regards,

Jorge Rodríguez

#4

I just looked at installing it, but it wants to install 13 dependencies
including two to get weather information (?!), two for geocoding (?!)
and nine for the Evolution Data Server, whatever that is. I can't see
why any of those should be necessary to print labels, so I won't be
installing it. Thanks for suggesting it though, it may help others.

#5

Evolution is Gnome's default PIM data storage center.
May be the geocoding is related to determination of a factor from the addresses (postcode?) and weather affects how many licks to seal the envelope.
steve

#6

:slight_smile:

FWIW, I just downloaded the glabels 3.4.0 source package and compiled
it. Evolution Data Server is optional and I didn't choose to install
it. Without that I saw no sign of the build requiring geocoding or
weather, but then I didn't include any barcode support either so maybe
that or something else was relevant. The only thing I had to do extra
was sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib

In short, my complaint is apparently to do with my distro's packaging
rather than the software itself.

It has a long list of Avery labels, BTW ...

#7

A few months ago, I asked about printing envelopes. All I got was explaining how LO does it.

Hold on: you asked on a list concerned with LibreOffice about printing envelopes and you got a reply about how LibreOffice prints envelopes? I have to say that I'm not surprised! Surely you shouldn't expect anything else?

It's worth saying that "printing envelopes" is not really a concept any more than "printing letters to my maiden aunt" or "printing notices for the youth club notice board". An envelope is just a particular variety of paper stock, and you can print on it just as you can print on any other stock. Set your document size and orientation to that of your envelopes and proceed as usual. The only stumbling block may be discovering in which orientation your printer expects envelopes to be loaded (which varies between printers) and how you then ensure that you document is constructed appropriately to match.

Finally someone said LO only prints one envelope for one document, ...

LibreOffice has the facility easily to add to a letter (or other postal document) a single envelope in which to post it. Most letters go in a single envelope. If you don't want that, don't use it. I suspect your respondents were trying to be helpful. And what is this "one document"? You said you wanted to printed envelopes - nothing about documents.

... not 100 envelopes with a custom return address.

Is that what you asked for?

That's easy: construct a document that is the face of your envelope with the custom return address and nothing else. Experiment to confirm orientations as above. Load your envelopes. Print the document, setting "Number of copies" to 100. Job done.

Or do you perhaps mean something else? Do you want to print a hundred envelopes with the same return address but with a hundred different addresses on them - presumably sourced from a database of addresses? If so, you have not mentioned most of that! Most word processors have the facility to do this, and LibreOffice is no exception. The process is called "mail merge" and is covered in Chapter 11 of the Writer Guide "Using Mail Merge - Form Letters, Mailing Labels, and Envelopes" - specifically in the section "Printing envelopes". It's not trivial, but I think it is fairly easy to follow.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#8

+1

Good job Brian!

#9

Well hi there!

So much to discuss.  Re printing envelopes in quantity, which was the the question that I wrote about, I was, and still am creating about 8 different custom envelopes of different sizes use a word processor invented in the 1980 era for the CP/M operating system called Wordstar.  Granted I am currently using version 5.5 under a newer version of the DOS operating system. I print these in advance so my office staff can just grab an envelope, put the addressee on the envelope using a TSR and toss in into outgoing mail, of course, after adding it to the mail log database using a FoxPro 2.6 under DOS custom program I wrote.

I struggled with the method you referenced below, soliciting assistance from this list.  The responders also could not get LO to print a stack of envelopes.  We finally agreed that the LO way is to print each envelope with each document.  We did not discuss that about 25% of the documents that we create are reports created using the Foxpro 2.6 for DOS language/database referenced above.

Finally, we do not use "mail merge", under Word Star or LO, as we create custom documents, not mass mailings.

Hope that clears this up,

John Sowden
American Sentry Systems, Inc.

#10

Good Evening,

Please see my response.

John

#11

John,

That's quite an eclectic collection of vintage software. I can't
remember the last time I found someone still using DOS, an operating
system I still miss. In one sense, I envy you. I'm an old PC-Write for
DOS fan myself, and I loved all all those uber-productive WordStar
ctrl-key combinations, which PC-Write emulated.

All that aside, I never saw your original question to this list, but if
I had, I might have responded with a solution similar to Brian's. I have
been using LO to print envelopes for years and it's the simplest thing
ever. It appears from what you wrote to Brian that all you want is to
print your return address on a batch of envelopes of different sizes so
that your office staff can then grab one of the pre-printed envelopes
and put the addressee on the envelope.

Here's how I did it with LO and #10 business sized envelopes.

1. I first found out how my printer feeds envelopes. Its paper feeder
loads envelopes in the center of the feeder with the envelope turned in
a landscape orientation with the top of the envelope facing left. I have
had printers that fed envelopes on one side or the other of the paper
feeder, with some facing left and some facing left, and some with face
up printing and others with face-down printing.

2. Once I figured out how my printer feeds envelopes, I then created a
blank LO document and set the orientation to landscape. Then, with trial
and error, I figured out what margins I needed to set to get the text to
appear at the location of a return address on an envelope. At first, I
tried to change the paper size in LO to match the size of the envelopes,
but then I realized I didn't need to do that. I just used my default 8.5
x 11 paper size and adjusted my page margins so that the address
appeared where it would print on the envelope.

Yes, my method took a little time (about 15 minutes) and I wasted an
envelope or two (until I realized I could just print my test "envelopes"
on regular letter sized paper, and then hold it up to an envelope to see
if the margins would be right).

Once I got it set up, I saved the document as an LO template with my
return address in place. As Brian suggested, I can now print out 100
return address envelopes by simply selecting 100 copies. Of course, my
printer's paper feeder will object to 100 envelopes being fed in one
batch, but that's a printer issue, not an LO issue.

Now, I realize my method may be considered somewhat of a hack, but it
works just fine. I like Brian's depiction of an envelope simply being
another form of paper stock and LO being a tool to place characters on
paper. It's just a matter of figuring out how the paper gets fed into a
printer and then adjusting page margins to make sure the words appear on
the paper where you want them.

I also realize that, by now, you have found another solution using a
different application, but others may still be wondering how it can be
done with LO.

Virgil

#12

Thank you for your response. I use the same method of trial and error to get things where I want them on paper also.  Your response is similar to climbing a mountain.  If no one seems to have done it, half way up, one might think that it cannot be done, but once it has been done, then my being able to do it is a slam dunk.  I will follow your instructions carefully, and I am sure I will meet with success.

Your comment about the list's readers is why I mentioned glabels.

Thabnks again,

john

#13

ahh...nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Cheers
Harvey