Feature of the Month

April 2003

CREATING LABELS with MS WORD for Office XP

I.       In Version 7 with General Reports

The ability to create bulk labels from a customer list in Retail Pro in conjunction with Microsoft Word is an essential function.  Below are described the processes for doing such using 7-series Retail Pro equipped with General Reports and MS Word for Office XP.

In RETAIL PRO you must:

   1.          From the main Retail Pro screen, click on General Reports to enter into the reports tool.  In General Reports click on LISTS & LABELS, and from the list of reports that appear, choose CUSTOMERS: Export Names/Addr, Delimited by highlighting it and then pressing ENTER.

2.         Press the END key on your keyboard once.  Then, from the filter window that appears, specify the desired filter criteria to limit the customers you will create labels for, and finally press the END key again.

   3.          You will be returned to the main General Reports window.  The above steps just created a text file named EXPORT.TXT in the RPRO folder of your Retail Pro install folder.   Press ESC on the keyboard and you are returned to the main Retail Pro screen.

Next, you will be opening up NOTEPAD and editing the customer text file you just created so that it contains column headers.  Perform the following tasks:

4.         Open up the NOTEPAD utility in windows by clicking on the START button in the lower left of the Windows screen.  Then click on Programs, then on Accessories, then on Notepad.

5.         In the Notepad utility, click on FILE in the upper left corner of the window, and then choose OPEN….  A standard file browsing window will appear.  Click on the drop-down arrow as circled in red below, and then browse to the appropriate path of the RPRO folder on your computer.  (i.e., in a networked environment, the RPRO folder is most likely in R:\Retail; otherwise it will probably be found in D:\Retail).

6.         There should be a file named EXPORT.TXT in the main window.  Highlight this file and then click OPEN.

7.         All of the information in the customer file is now listed in text format in notepad.  Your cursor should be blinking in the first space on the first row.  Press the ENTER key on the keyboard to move all text down one line.

8.         Then, on the top line type the following text precisely (with no spaces):

"","","First","Last","Address1",

              "Address2","Address3","ZipCode","",""

9.         After the text above is added to the first line of the document, click on FILE from the upper left of the Notepad window and then click SAVE.

10.       Click on the X in the upper right of the Notepad window to close the utility.

Next, you will be using MS WORD 2002 for Office XP to create the labels.  Perform the steps below:

11.       Open a new Microsoft Word document.  From the main toolbar, click on TOOLS, then on LETTERS and MAILINGS, and finally on MAIL MERGE WIZARD.

12.       A new wizard box will appear on the right side of the screen.  From the top portion that appears as below-left, choose the option LABELS and then click the blue text NEXT: Starting document from the bottom of the wizard (and as it appears below-right).

13.       The wizard screen (on the far right) changes.  From the middle of the wizard window click on the blue text Label Options… as it appears below.

14.       Next, a window will appear as below.  In the drop-down box titled Label products: choose the appropriate product name of the labels that you will be printing to (Avery Standard is a typical selection).  Then, in the window titled Product number: choose the appropriate label number for the product you will be using (8160-address is a typical selection for Avery products).  Click OK when you have selected the product appropriate to the label sheets you will be printing to.

15.       The main document window will now appear with grey lines that divide the page into “label-like” sections.  Click on the blue text NEXT: Select recipients from the bottom of the wizard window (and as it appears below).

16.       The wizard screen again changes.  From the middle of the wizard window, click on the blue text BROWSE… as it appears below.

17.       A windows exploring window will appear.  From the drop-down box on the bottom of the window titled Files of type: click on the drop-down arrow and choose All Files (*.*). 

18.       From the top of the file exploring window, in the drop-down box titled Look In: choose the appropriate path of the RPRO folder (as found on Page #1, Step #2 of this document).  In the main window there should be a file named EXPORT.TXT.  Click on it once to highlight it, and then click the OPEN button (or, if following steps from Section II for v7 and Windows Reports, locate the file name of the excel spreadsheet that you saved in step #4 of section 2).

19.       A window will then appear as below.  Click OK to continue.

20.       From the bottom of the wizard window, click on the blue text NEXT: Arrange you labels as it appears below.

21.       From the middle of the wizard window, click on the blue text More items… as it appears below-left.  A window will appear exactly as below-right.  From this window double-click on the field names of FIRST, LAST, ADDRESS1, ADDRESS2, ADDRESS3, and ZIP CODE.  Notice that as you double-click on these field names they appear in the first label on the main Word document.  Once you have all of the above fields listed on the Word document, click the CLOSE button to close the window.

22.       The first label in the upper left of the word document should now appear exactly as below-left.  Use the navigational keys on your keyboard as well as the ENTER/SPACE keys to move the fields to a layout that you want all labels to be printed as.  The finished product should appear similar to the picture below-right.

23.       Next, from the wizard window along the right side click on the button Update All Labels as pictured below.  Notice that all labels in the main document window are now populated with the formatting of the picture above-right.

24.       In the wizard window click on the blue text NEXT: Preview your labels as pictured below.  Your labels in the main window should now be populated with appropriate customer information.

25.       If your labels appear as desired, then click the blue text NEXT: Complete the Merge from the bottom of the wizard window.  If you label layout needs to be edited, click on the blue text PREVIOUS: Arrange your labels and repeat steps 10 through 12.

26.       The labels are now finished!  Click on File from the main toolbar, then click Save As… and give this document of labels an appropriate name.  Then, Print the labels normally as you would with a Word document, making sure that the sheets of labels are loaded in the printer.

II.      In Version 7 with Windows Reports

1.        First, you must create a new Customer LIST Report.  To do this, open up Windows Reports as usual.  Then, click on the LISTS icon from the side toolbar that appears as below.

 2.     Then, from the window that appears as below, click on the button for CUSTOMER

3.        From the window that appears, change the REPORT NAME to CUSTOMER LABELS and the last option in the main window asks whether to insert a blank line feed after each entry.  Choose NO for this option. 

4.        Next, click on the icon from the side toolbar that says LAYOUT.  Then, from the main window double-click on all items listed above the line so that they are greyed out and dropped below the line.  Then, below the line locate the fields: LAST NAME, FIRST NAME, ADDRESS1, ADDRESS2, ADDRESS3, and ZIP CODE and double-click on each of these so that they are above the line and no longer greyed out.

5.        Run the report (by clicking the PRINT icon from the main toolbar across the top and then OK), filtered as desired, and then from the top of the report preview click on the drop down box circled below and choose the option SEND to EXCEL.

6.        When the excel spreadsheet opens, erase the first 6 rows of the spreadsheet.  Then, move the entries in row 7 (that should say First Name, Last Name, etc…column headers) to row 1. 

7.        Then, click on FILE in Excel and then on SAVE AS…  Give this spreadsheet a name that you’ll remember in an appropriate location.  From here, close Excel and continue with Steps #11-26 in section I.

III.    CREATING MAILING LABELS in 8-series Retail Pro

(In 8-series Microsoft Word is not needed to print customer mailing labels)

1.        From the main screen in RPRO, click on the POS icon from the top, and then the CUSTOMERS icon from the side toolbar.

2.       Click on the icon from the side toolbar that says Print Labels…

3.        Depending on the way that Workstation Preferences are set up, a window should appear that says Select Label.  A number of icons should be in the window, each corresponding to different label types.  The most commonly used is Avery Standard 8160.  Click on that icon once and then click OK to proceed.

4.        From the Print Labels window that should appear next, make sure that the proper printer is selected, and that the sheets of labels are loaded properly.  Then click PRINT to print the labels.