October 2004
Hands-On Review—Mail Factory v.1.4
Mail Factory from BeLight Software "manufactures" envelopes, address labels and
shipping labels on your Mac. One uses Mail Factory to design and print the labels and/or
envelopes. The application is now up to version 1.4 (released last week), the version that
this review is based on. We have also favorably reviewed Belight's other major Mac application,
Business Card Composer.
Here are Mail Factory's main features:
- Print single envelopes and labels or batch print addresses from Mac OS X's
Address Book, Entourage, Eudora, Now Contact, MS Excel, FileMaker, vCards or
any tab-delimited text files.
- Print USPS POSTNET and UK Royal Mail barcodes on labels and envelopes to
help expedite delivery.
- Correctly format addresses for more than 50 countries. Mail Factory conforms
to postal guidelines and supports FIM-A Codes.
- The unique Address Recognition feature allows the pasting of an address as
text from other applications. Mail Factory automatically formats it to the chosen
postal standards and applies correct the barcode.
- Mail Factory automatically supports DYMO LabelWriter printers and ready-made
labels from most popular companies including: Avery, APLI, A-One, and more.
- The position of the initial label can be chosen so that partially used label
sheets can be used.
- Add a personalized look to mailings with dozens of ready-made designs or insert
custom images, apply masks and control transparency. More than 500 clipart images
are included with Mail Factory.
Check out BeLight's Samples page
for ideas on how to use Mail Factory.
We used Mail Factory to quickly make an address label for Macs Only!'s envelopes.
Launching the application opened the Assistant:
We selected the label image in the upper left corner, Return Address Label
from the pop-up menu and the label manufacturer/type from the left window. An image of the
label sheet shows in the right window to confirm the correct selection. We clicked the
"Next" button.
In Step 2 the design of the label is selected. We added Macs Only!'s original
logo to the collection of clip art from a folder on our hard drive and clicked the "Next"
button.
In Step 3 the address for the label is selected. We chose ours from Mac OS X 10.3.5's
Address Book and clicked the "Finish" button. The completed label is shown below.
One can still edit the label further as needed. The editor has handy automatic
alignment guides (the blue dashed line in the image above) that help to perfectly align logo and
text.
Once again BeLight has released a terrific application. Like Business Card
Composer, Mail Factory is very
easy to use and produces outstanding results. Mail Factory is $29.95 (download version, $39.95
for a CD) or $59.95 when bundled as a download with the $39.95 Business Card Composer.
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