Freshly Squeezed Reviews: If you must use snail mail...

May, 2009

By: Frank Petrie

Whenever I receive correspondence via snail mail, I'm always impressed when the envelope has been printed out using a computer. Why? Because I'm easily amused. And because it looks so professional. Sort of makes a person like myself feel important. And that's why there's Addresses & Labels (US$49.95) from BeLight Software.

“Labels & Addresses (formerly Mail Factory) is a home and office tool for printing single or multiple labels and envelopes using a data from a print list. This program helps to design and print envelopes, postcards and diverse labels, such as address, shipping, file folder and barcode labels.”

A program that will let me use those three leftover address labels that are left on dozens of Avery sheets! Great!

The Pulp

Integration with Address Book, Entourage and others. Create return labels, shipping labels, handling labels and, naturally print on your envelopes from your generated print lists. Customizable a thousand ways to Sunday (what does that mean?). Can even pick barcodes by country. Choose the label from which you want to start.

As far as label stock, Labels & Addresses supports over a dozen manufacturers from Avery to Xerox labels. They also support different postcard and envelope stocks.

You can create bar code labels. So, if you're a small business owner, you can create your own price tags with bar codes, prices and product names.

With all this control, it's not surprising what you can do with art on your labels. This includes “Art Text.” The amount and choices of templates is very impressive. Customization tools give you an amazing amount of control of personalizing your art and its backgrounds. And, of course, Art Text isn't just for labels. You can create postcards, CD covers, name badges (“We don't need...”) and much more with the built-in image editor.

Their site has several videos that will help you learn the software's workflow. There's also a resource page to get you started on your projects.

The Rind

Sorry, folks. You're going to have to read a little if you want to milk every possible feature from Labels & Addresses. But it's worth it

Summary

If you have some serious business to perform, Labels & Addresses is what you need. This software can do some real heavy lifting. And at this price, with all of its features, it's a steal at twice the price.

Now, if only I had someone to write to.

Macsimum rating : 10 out of 10 (and then some)

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