Each Label must have a Title and a Label Template (‘Labelset’ on the form). The ownership of the labels is automatically assigned to the person logged on. Only they can modify it but any other use can make use of it. The three buttons at the top – General, Feeder and Staff - will toggle the merge fields according to the type of letter you are composing. To create a new label click the Add button at the bottom (not visible here). To edit an existing label click the Edit button at the bottom (not visible here.) When the label is complete click the Save button.

The main panel in the middle is where you type your label. Parts like «Address» are (or rather will become) merged fields picking up information from your database. To include a merge field, double-click the one you want from one of the two lists on the right (Adult or Pupil). It will then appear at the current cursor position on the label. You can also adjust the left padding, justification and font using the controls to the right of the Label Body. These settings affect all the text on the label. There is the additional facility to add a sub-label which is sometimes desirable when you want further information such as a pupil’s form or first name to appear in a different part of the label. When you put a tick in the Sub label check box, the lower box become editable. Text in the sub-label has its own justification and font settings. Text will only appear in the Sub Label Body when you click inside the box so that the border becomes highlighted as shown above.

When the label is merged and dropped directly into Word, the correct information will replace these merge fields. So for the above selected field, you would see something like:

You will see that there is a Try it button on the form. This is just to enable you to check the output. As with Merge Letters the main method of using these will be from the Pupil Finder or from the Contacts page in a pupil record.

Cloning a set of Labels

If you click the Clone button, SchoolBase will create a copy of your label set. You can then modify it as necessary. This is an alternative to creating a new set from scratch where the new set is very like an existing set. Remember to give the set a new title.

Using Labels

We have already examined the use of single address labels when we were looking at the Contacts page of the pupil record. For producing multiple labels the technique is almost identical to that for Merge Letters. Just set your criteria on the left of Finder as normal, check that the selected pupils are what you require, click the Merge tab and select the label set you require from the Labels dropdown. As before, using the Adult criteria box you can select which type of contact you wish to print labels for. Press the Preview button and your data and label will then be dropped directly into Word.