By Claire Pieterek
The leaves have turned and fallen, the bonfires have turned to ash, and we've all had our fill of Thanksgiving turkey. Our thoughts now turn to football, Christmas, and getting the holiday cards out on time. Here's how you can speed up the latter task by printing labels based on the names in your Palm organizer's Address Book.
These instructions assume you're using Palm Desktop 3, Microsoft Word, and Avery labels. Other word processors may also have templates for Avery labels. Avery includes a "Formatting and Printing Tips" pamphlet in their label packages with instructions for various word processors, including multiple versions of Word Pro, older versions of Word for Windows and Macintosh, and WordPerfect for DOS and Windows. Many boxes of Avery labels contain a diskette with macros and templates. You can also download these templates from Avery's web site.
Start Palm Desktop, and select the Address application. Select the category you'd like to use by clicking the category drop-down list.
Select the names you'd like to make labels for by holding the Control key down as you left-click each name with your mouse. When you have selected all of the names and addresses you want to use for labels, as shown in Figure A, drag them to the Word icon at the bottom right of the Palm Desktop screen.
FIGURE A
Select the names, then drag them to the Word icon at the bottom right of the Palm Desktop screen. (click for larger image)
A table containing the addresses you selected will be created in Word, as shown in Figure B.
FIGURE B
Dragging the names you have selected to the Word icon automatically creates a table in Word. (click for larger image)
Delete the columns you don't need, such as Phone 1 through Phone 5. Highlight the columns you don't want. Then, from the Table menu, choose Delete Cells, then Delete Entire Column, as shown in Figure C. Click OK to complete the deletion. Repeat this process for other columns you wish to discard, such as Country, Custom 1 through Custom 4, Note, and Category.
FIGURE C
This is the Delete Cells dialog. Choose "Delete entire column" to delete the adjacent columns you have selected. (click for larger image)
Now, convert the table to text. First, you'll need to highlight the table by choosing Select Table from the Table menu. Once the entire table is selected, choose Convert Table to Text from the Table menu. Choose from the characters to separate text -- I usually use tabs -- then click OK to complete converting the table to text, as shown in Figure D.
