Data Best Practices

Garbage in, garbage out. The quality of your labels depends heavily on the structure of your source data. Here are our top recommendations.

1. Split Your Data

Don't lump everything into one cell. It's easier to combine fields in the designer than to split them.

Bad:

• Column: Address
• Value: John Smith, 123 Main St, New York, NY 1001

Good:

• Column: Name -> John Smith
• Column: Street -> 123 Main St
• Column: City -> New York
• Column: State -> NY
• Column: Zip -> 10001

Why? This gives you control to bold just the Name, or put the City and State on a new line.

2. Standardize Formatting

Ensure consistency in your columns.

• Phone Numbers: Stick to one format (e.g., 555-0199). If you mix (555) 0199 and 555.0199, your labels will look messy.
• Casing: Use "Title Case" for names and addresses. "JOHN SMITH" usually looks aggressive on a label; "john smith" looks unprofessional. Excel has a =PROPER() function to fix this.

3. Handle Images with URLs

To print images dynamically:

• Host your images online (Dropbox, Google Drive direct links, or your company server).
• Put the full direct URL in the spreadsheet cell.
• https://mysite.com/images/product1.jpg.

4. Avoid Special Characters in Headers

Keep column headers alphanumeric.

• Avoid: Price ($), Name/Title, #ID.
• Preferred: Price, NameTitle, ID.
• Special symbols in headers can sometimes confuse the merge field parser.

5. Remove Empty Rows

Delete extra empty rows at the bottom of your spreadsheet. While we try to filter them, they can sometimes cause 10 blank pages to be generated at the end of your PDF.

6. Use Formulas for Logic

The Label Designer doesn't do "logic" (if/then statements). Do your logic in the spreadsheet.

Scenario: You want to print "Priority Shipping" only if weight > 10lbs.

• In Excel: Create a new column called ShippingLabel.
• Formula: =IF(A2>10, "Priority Shipping", "Standard").
• In Designer: Just use {{ShippingLabel}}.