How to Print Jelly Stickers Off the Computer
If you have a special home canning project in mind that you want to package with custom printed labels, you can do that with a personal compute and a home printer. You can select from a wide variety of adhesive labels for your project, available anywhere office supplies are sold.
Things You'll Need
- Ink jet or Laser jet Adhesive Labels
- Desktop Publishing or Word Processing software
- Ink jet or Laser jet printer
Instructions
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Purchase adhesive labels of your choice and which match your printer type. Labels for ink jet and laser jet printers come in a huge selection of sizes and colors. Labels are sold in sheets of so many labels per sheet. Note the manufacturer name and label size code, such as "Avery 5160."
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Open a desktop publishing program, like Microsoft Publisher for example, or a word processing program like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, or open source software like OpenOffice. A desktop publishing program is preferable over a simple word processing program since the desktop publishing program will usually offer the most options for producing a "fancy" jar label design.
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Look for a "label wizard" inside the software program that will help you design and create a label for your canning project. Both Microsoft Publisher and Word offer these step-by-step wizard instructions. These wizards can be programmed with the label size code, such as "Avery 5160," and will adjust the margins of the project to fit that label size perfectly. Avery Labels aren't the only choice, however; other label manufacturer templates are also available inside most wizard set up guides.
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Set your label margins, if necessary, both within each label, and within the grouping of labels on a sheet of labels so the "printed" area falls within label, and neither "goes off" the label or prints in the margins between labels on a sheet. The software design wizards will assist in this configuration. Otherwise, set these margins manually.
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Draw a text box and any picture box inside the first label on the sheet shown on the computer screen. Use the software program's Tool Bar to create text blocks and picture boxes if your wizard doesn't provide this help automatically. Type your desired text into the text box and/or insert a picture or drawing into the image box. Tweak the type font, spacing, ink color, or other design considerations until you like the label's appearance.
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Copy and paste the final design so that you fill all the label spaces shown on the program's Sheet View with your chosen design. If you use a software wizard, this step will usually be accomplished for you. Save your work by clicking "File" and "Save" and naming your project.
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Load one sheet in the printer, correct side "Up." Print a test page of one sheet of labels. Click "File" and "Print." Select "1" as the number of sheets of labels you want to print, and then click "OK." Examine the test to make sure all the margins are set correctly. Troubleshoot any margin settings.
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Run a second test printing. Make adjustments again, if necessary, and then start the "Production Batch Run" when satisfied. Set the "Quantity" number to reflect the number of sheets of labels you want to print. Load all the sheets of labels needed for the project into the printer.
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Tips & Warnings
Laser jet printed labels are waterproof while ink jet printed labels are not. For this kind of project, laser jet printing is preferable. But determine which type of printer you have and purchase labels accordingly.
Monitor the printing. If something goes wrong, pull all of the blank labels out of the paper tray to stall continued printing of more "wrong" pages and prevent any further loss of expensive ink and ruined labels. Cancel the batch and readjust as necessary. Reload the labels and restart the batch printing again.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jars of opuntia fruits and oranges jam image by Elzbieta Sekowska from Fotolia.com
