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January 2005
PRACTICAL LABEL SOFTWARE
By: Roman Loyola
BeLight's Mail Factory 1.4 saves us from scrawling addresses
on snail mail by providing an easy way to create labels and print on envelopes.
If you already have a heavy-duty word-processing app such as Word, you may
not need Mail Factory to create basic labels — but if you don't, Mail
Factory is an affordable and helpful tool.
 Mail
Factory opens directly into an Assistant that helps you create your labels or
envelopes. There's a vast selection of label formats from manufacturers such
as A-One, APLI, Avery, Decadry, Devauzet, DYMO, Formtec, Herma, Hisago, MACO,
Pimaco, Siegel, and Xerox. Envelope formats include U.S., European, and Japanese.
Address assistant. Once you choose your label
or envelope, the Assistant guides you through the design process. After choosing
your address layout, you can manually enter the address or import it from Apple's
Address Book. Entourage, Eudora, FoleMaker Pro, MS Excel, Now Contact, vCards, or
tab-delimited text files. While you're importing your addresses, your address
book app may warn you about Mail Factory's script trying to access your address
— viruses often use such a script to get addresses to which they can
propagate themselves (we got such a warning in Entourage).
The Assistant creates basic labels and envelopes; you can add
special graphics, change the font and alignment, and make corrections once the
Assistant is done. You can even add images from your iPhoto library. Mail Factory
can also add a USPS PostNet barcode above or below the recipient's address.
The only problem we had with Mail Factory was its lack of
flexibility with address fields. You have six lines of text to work with; each
line has data fields for name, address, city, etc. For most users, that's enough
— but you can't add more.
The bottom line. For mass mailings —
or to replace that chicken scratch you call your handwriting — Mail
Factory is a valuable utility.
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GOOD NEWS: Easy to use. Supports a large selection of labels and envelope types.
BAD NEWS: Can't add more lines to an address.
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