Printing Customer Labels From Word

For users of Retail Pro Version Seven only:

Many Retail Pro users also use Microsoft products at their places of business. These products are so well known that Microsoft Word is thought of as the industry standard for word processors. This month we explain how to get your customer mailing list out of Retail Pro and into Microsoft Word for printing mailing labels. In this example, we recommend using Avery brand labels. To make sure you are using the right size labels, just make sure Avery model number 8160 appears on the box.

1) In Retail Pro, go to General Reports > lists and labels > Customers: Export names/address delimited. Press ENTER.

2) This will bring up a box that says EXPORT FILE NAME: EXPORT, FILTER: CUSTOMER.

Press END.

3) This will bring up a filter. Enter your filter information for selected customers, or leave the filter blank for the entire customer list.

Press END

This will export your customer list to a file named EXPORT.TXT, located in the RPRO directory.

4) Press ESC to exit Retail Pro.

5) Open Microsoft Word to a blank document.

6) Choose tools, then mail merge.

7) This brings up the MAIL MERGE helper. Choose the first pull-down menu. Choose CREATE MAIN DOCUMENT, MAILING LABELS.

8) Choose NEW MAIN DOCUMENT. This will open a new page for you.

9) Choose the second pull-down menu: GET DATA. From the list, open DATA SOURCE. From the OPEN DATA SOURCE and from this WINDOW browse to the RPRO folder using the LOOK IN PULL DOWN MENU. (ie, F:RETAILRPRO, or your data path to RPRO) Change the FILES OF TYPE:) at the bottom of the window to TEXT FILES.

10) Highlight EXPORT.TXT in the RPRO directory and choose OPEN.

11) This brings up the SETUP MAIN DOCUMENT window. You will be asked to choose which Avery labels you will be using. For this example, we will use 8160 labels (3 across 10 down). Scroll down to 8160 labels, and click OK.

12 This will bring up the CREATE LABELS window. Choose the INSERT MERGE FIELD pull-down menu.

13) This will bring up 10 Auto merge fields. From the list, select choices 3 and 4 on the list, on line 1. (This represents the customers first and last name as they might appear in the list), then select choice 5 on the next line (mailing address). Then choose 6,7 and 8 from the list on the 3rd line (city state zip.)

14) Choose MERGE, then choose MERGE again. This will print your RPRO customers in the Avery 8160 label format