 Mail Factory V2.4, BeLight Software, Ltd
July, 2006
By: Leonard Rapoport
I have been on a Mac for so many years now that I am not
sure if the first Mac I had was the Classic or the SE. Needless to say,
I have stayed loyal and even own some shares in Apple, but this review
is not about the Mac or Apple, it is about Mail Factory a neat little
mail program that finally replaces my very old Mac Envelope (that is
only system 9 compatible).
I have used Mac Envelope for so many years and had created
a number of custom templates for my labels and envelopes, that I didn’t
know what to do, if I was ever going to purchase a new IMac that didn’t
support Classic System 9. In the past I searched and couldn’t seem
to find anything that would duplicate the clean, neat interface in my old
program and all but gave up until I discovered Mail Factory.
Mail Factory is owned and produced by a group of creative guys
and gals out of the Ukraine named BeLight Software. Yup, this program might be
designed and created in the Ukraine, but it looks and feels right at home here
in the good old USA. It has a cool graphical appearance and interface and will
handle even the most difficult tasks and is easy to use. Simply follow their
clear instructions and you will be printing professional envelopes, labels,
forms and postcards in minutes. BeLight has done the job better then any other
mail program we have seen to date, including the ones from the larger software
companies.
MailFactory is a fully functional, commercial quality mail and
label program and perfect for any home or office use. eBay sellers should be happy
using this program, because it makes printing labels and postal forms a breeze.
Here is a description of some of the programs features, taken
directly from their web site:
Mail Merge
You can quickly print single envelopes and labels, or batch-print addresses from OS X
Address Book, Entourage, Eudora, Now Contact, MS Excel, FileMaker, vCards or tab-delimited
text files. Use the built-in storages of recipients' and senders' addresses to edit
and store mailing lists.
Advanced Mailing
Mail Factory prints USPS POSTNET, Canada Post and Royal Mail barcodes on labels and
envelopes to help expedite delivery, and correctly formats addresses for more than 50
countries. 15 address templates (corporate, personal and extended ones) simplify the
process of address creation.
The unique Address Recognition feature allows you to paste an address as text from
other applications, and Mail Factory automatically formats it to the postal standards
and applies the barcode.
Flexible Printing
Label Printers Mail Factory supports labels from most popular companies, including
Avery, APLI, A–One, prints on DYMO (LabelWriter–series), Seiko (SLP–series)
and Brother (QL–series) printers. Advanced merge printing functionality is perfect
for mass mailings. The convenient print dialog lets you make final editing changes to
the labels and envelopes, see which labels will be printed. Also, you can choose the
position of the label that you're printing to, so you can re-use partially used label sheets.
Designing Tools
Masks to images Add personalized, corporate look to your mailings with dozens of ready-made
designs. You can also insert custom images with your company logo or other graphics,
apply masks and control transparency. More than 800 clipart images, collection of postcard
designs and 100 unique masks are included.
We wanted to try MailFactory because we actually needed a program that
would print most common size envelopes and some of the standard Avery and other branded
labels for IPA. Although we never really do any mass mailings, having a program that
could merge our mailing list would certainly be a plus, in the event we wanted to send
Christmas cards or other announcements out.
Since IPA has its own printed labels which are not standard sizes, we
needed to be able to print those individual custom labels as well. Finally, we wanted
a program that we could use to print the many USPS (United States Postal Service) forms.
We use the most common forms including the Insurance, Delivery Confirmation and Custom
CN-22 forms and simply wanted to be able to print the “To” and “From”
fields into those forms.
When the staff of BeLight Software offered us the opportunity to try
out and review their Mail Factory we jumped at the chance. We needed a new program
for our office and we always like to write our reviews on the lesser known, but worthwhile
hardware and software items which just don’t get enough publicity. We like the
small, creative companies and always try to give them some publicity and our support if
they deserve it and BeLight has earned our support with Mail Factory.
When we first opened Mail Factory, we were excited to find not only an
easy to use Assistant, which guided us through the process of printing our first #10
envelope with very little effort, but a robust program that will also support all the
popular label printers. This program is easy to use and the Mail Factory “Assistant”
makes the learning process even easier.
When you launch the program the Assitant automatically opens (you can
open it from the menu as well). On the top of the window, you have a choice of three
types of forms, a Label, Envelope and a Postcard. As you select any one of these, you
will see another window below these tabs with three more tabs: Predefined, Custom and
Recently Used.
The predefined contains almost every possible standard label, envelope
or postcard type and style you could want. On the postcards you will find templates for
Avery 2 and 4 up as well as Paper Direct, A-One and US and European postcards. The label
menu includes so many labels that they cover most of the labels from 15 manufacturers.
If you can’t find a Predefined template here you can always take one that is close
and create your own custom labels, as we did.
So now that we have selected our project type (label, envelope or postcard),
we now select our Manufacturer of the labels or other items we want to work on and in
the case of Labels or Post Cards, the Paper Size. The label we select is also shown in
the paper size and the label layout we selected, so we can see a visual representation to
make sure we have chosen the correct label. Now you simply hit the “Next”
button and the assistant will take you to the “Design” page and you can
select the area of the label you want to design.
There is a pull down menu which offers you choices from the Addressing
Text, to the Return Address and lots of graphics to use on your label. Everything is so
easy and a simple click on one of the design choices changes the display, so you can
now see what the final result will look like. Once again we hit the Next button and was
taken to the Address Window where we can now select the Sender, Recipient (either one of
multiple) and do it all from our Apple Address Book, Entourage or other text files and
address book programs.
We are now ready to "Finish" our project and print it so once
again we hit the Finish button and our label, with full color graphics appears and is
ready to print. We now save this form, as well as many others, for future use and use
their menu in the future to select those forms, labels and envelopes we need to use.
To create our custom labels or templates for our USPS forms, we simply
selected one of their other forms (we chose the post card) since it was similar in size
to our label or forms. You can also select a # 6 envelope or any other envelope or
postcard you like. This was easier for us then trying to find a label and also gave
us many other options for positioning our To and From areas and text.
It was so easy to simply open an envelope or postcard, add the two
address blocks we needed (one for the To Address and one for the From Address) to the
form. In the case of United States Postal forms where the To and From addresses are on
top of each other, we simply moved them by selecting the box and dragging it over to the
final position we needed. We then adjusted the Font and Size and printed a test,
adjusted it as necessary and saved it as the form it was.
So now we have our own library of USPS forms saved on our hard drive
ready to be selected when we need them. A great time saver for us since we send so much
international mail and must complete a shipping label and customs label too.
In working with BeLight on this article, we suggested they add these
ready made templates to their library of templates in the program so the US user
doesn’t have to do it themselves. We even sent them most of the popular forms
to get them started. Hopefully in a later release, you will find these as well as the
hundreds of others already available in this program.
One problem we did encounter in our initial use of the program, was not
being able to print our single labels and forms properly. After some hours and emails
to BeLight, we discovered the easy fix. When printing a single label, envelope or form
you must select the option to “Load From Envelope Tray” which is a small
check box, right under the Paper Feed option. Once you select this option you can then
see your label, the way it will feed into your printer and rotate it if necessary to
feed it properly. You will also see three images to allow you to select the type of feed
into your printer, left, center or right. It couldn’t be easier once you
understand how it is set up. Of course you can also add a list of addresses here and print
a number of different labels all at the same time.
We love Mail Factory and to the best of our knowledge is the best program
and bargain out their for the Mac. At a cost starting at just under $20, you can
download their full version and be up and running in minutes. System Requirements: Mac
OS X 10.2 or later. Tiger Compatible.
We give this product our 4 out of 5 star rating and recommend anyone
looking for a mail program for their Mac
should visit their web site for more information and pricing.
While there, be sure to check out their other fine programs including:
Business Card Composer, Disc Cover, Swift Publisher, Image Tricks (FREE) and others.
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