July 2004

By: Staff

Odessa-based BeLight Software recently released MailFactory 1, a label and envelope printing application for Mac OS X. I was particularly interested in the many labels the program alledgedly supports, ranging from Avery to Dymo labels. The program answers to a need that many people will recognize: the need for one centralized application to integrate some of Mac OS X’s most useful little apps to output some useful data like addresses on an envelope or label.

MailFactory is simple to use. It has an assistant, many features to customize the end result and a good choice of clipart and pre-defined imagery to get you started quickly. The integration part is a wonderfully well designed integration with the Mac OS X address book---one like the original Dymo application should have had. MailFactory also integrates with your Entourage, Eudora or Now Contact address books.

All labels work well, with the exception of the Dymo large address label; that one doesn't print right, but then again, it's the only one. All other labels work fine. The number of Dymo labels is limited to twenty for some odd reason, although Dymo has well over forty labels to choose from. The other label formats are more abundantly present. Avery is well covered, and so is Decadry, A-One, Sigel, and so forth.

From the choice of label manufacturers it is clear we are dealing with a European or East-European company: most of the brands are very familiar to me, but I doubt if they are to American users (with the exception of Avery, of course). Whatever the case may be, all labels work well. And even if a label doesn't center correctly on the page, you can calibrate your printer or even set up a brand new page of labels based on an ordinary letter-size or A4-size sheet.

MailFactory comes with preset labels and envelope formatting. But you can create your own, using the built-in clipart which is very complete and comes with all kinds of symbols, including lesser-known. Compared to the original Dymo application, for example, MailFactory is much more complete in this area. Although it doesn't say so in the help files, MailFactory also accepts drag-and-drop images.

I tried this with a TIFF barcode and with an EPS barcode and both worked flawlessly---especially the EPS capability came as a surprise as many other, much more expensive programs seem to handle EPS badly. Speaking of barcodes: MailFactory of course supports US PostNet and it was the first and only program that I actually could see the barcode getting generated. The Dymo application also supports PostNet, but in Europe it doesn't allow you to create these barcodes, probably out of fear to mess up the local post systems...

A good plus for MailFactory is its ability to download images from the Internet, right into the application. Another good plus for the program is its layout support. The address on the label or envelope seems to be literally built up from Adress Book fields, i.e. each field is in its own rectangular location that is fixed inside the label in relation to other fields. At first, this seemed like a bad idea: you cannot, for example, change the space between first name and surname. But in reality this is a clever feature: it ensures the fields are always a standard distance apart from each other.

Laying out those fields isn,'t hard either: you can select the entire label and give it a different look. If you want the fields laid out independently of each other, that's possible too. And of course, by setting the right preferences, you can also decide which of the many fields Address Book supports, are placed on the label.

To sum it up: MailFactory is a cleanly designed, well-behaved and in my opinion useful piece of software. It's not expensive, and it offers a lot of functionality in a small, downloadable package. It behaves well in terms of integration with apple's Mac OS X applications, although I would have liked it to integrate with iPhoto as well---a feature that will be offered by Chronos' SOHO Labels and Envelopes program that's due for release in August.