How to Import Excel into Avery Label Template

Printing dozens of labels by hand is a drain on your time and a recipe for typos. There's a much smarter way. By connecting your Excel spreadsheet directly to an Avery label template in Microsoft Word, you can automatically generate hundreds of perfectly formatted labels in just a few minutes. This guide will walk you through every step of a process called a mail merge to make it fast and easy.

First Things First: Prepare Your Excel Data File

Before you even open a label template, the success of your project depends on having a clean, well-organized Excel file. A mail merge is powerful, but it's only as good as the data you feed it. Taking a few minutes to prepare your spreadsheet now will save you a massive headache later.

Think of your Excel file as a simple database. Every row represents one complete record (like one person's full address), and every column represents a specific piece of information for that record.

Here’s how to set it up for success:

• Use Clear Column Headers: The very first row of your spreadsheet should contain titles for each column. These headers (e.g., “First Name,” “Company,” “City,” “Postal Code”) will become the placeholders you'll use in your label template. Use simple, one-line headers with no special characters.
• One Record Per Row: Each row below the header should contain the information for a single label. Don't leave any blank rows in the middle of your list.
• Be Consistent: Make sure your data is formatted consistently. If you're using state abbreviations, use them for every entry. Double-check for misspellings in things like city names or street suffixes.
• Format for Special Cases: Excel sometimes tries to be "helpful" by changing your data's format. The most common victim is zip codes that start with a zero. Excel might see "07850" and change it to "7850." To prevent this, format your zip code column as Text before you enter the data. You can do this by selecting the column, right-clicking, choosing "Format Cells," and selecting "Text" from the Number tab.
• One piece of data per cell: Do not combine a city, state, and zip as "New York, NY 10001" in a single cell. Every part of the address must be in its own, distinct column.

Example of a Well-Formatted Spreadsheet

Each piece of information is in its own column, with clear headers in the first row. This organization makes it incredibly simple for Word to pull the right data for the right spot on the label.

Once your Excel file is looking good, save it with a clear name (like "Mailing_List_April_2024.xlsx") and close it. Microsoft Word works best with the source file when it's not open elsewhere.

Choosing and Opening Your Avery Template in Word

With your data prepped, it's time to get your label template. The mail merge itself happens inside Microsoft Word, using an official Avery template that matches the sheets of labels you have.

The most reliable way to get the correct template is directly from Avery's website. Your packet of labels has a specific product number printed on it (e.g., 5160, 22807, 8163). This number is your key.

1. Go to avery.com/templates.
2. Enter your product number into the search bar.
3. Select the blank template for Microsoft Word and download the ".doc" or ".docx" file. Another option is a design-and-print online version, for this walkthrough, we are only interested in a blank Microsoft Word file for use in this mail merge approach.
4. Save the template to your computer and open it in Word. It will likely look like a blank page or a page filled with a basic table or grid. This grid represents the individual labels on your sheet.

While you can sometimes find Avery templates pre-loaded in Word (via File > New), downloading it from the website guarantees you have the most up-to-date and correctly formatted version for your specific label type.

Step-by-Step Guide: Performing the Mail Merge

This is where you bring your data and your template together. The Mailings tab in Word has all the tools you'll need. Follow these steps carefully, and you’ll see your labels come to life.

Step 1: Start the Mail Merge Process

First, you need to tell Word that you're making labels.

1. Open your downloaded Avery template in Word.
2. Go to the Mailings tab on the Ribbon toolbar at the top.
3. Click on Start Mail Merge and select Labels... from the dropdown menu.

A "Label Options" dialog box will appear. Here, you'll need to confirm your label details. Under "Label vendors," select Avery US Letter (or the appropriate region). Then, find and select your product number in the "Product number" list. This should match what's on your packaging. Click OK. Word will now properly format the document grid to match your physical label sheet's dimensions.

Step 2: Select Your Recipients

Now it's time to connect your prepared Excel file.

1. On the Mailings tab, click Select Recipients.
2. Choose Use an Existing List... from the menu.
3. A file browser window will open. Navigate to where you saved your Excel file, select it, and click Open.

Word will then show a "Select Table" window. If your Excel file has multiple sheets, you'll need to choose the one containing your data (it's often named "Sheet1$"). Most importantly, make sure the box for "First row of data contains column headers" is checked. Click OK.

Your document won’t look different yet, but Word has now successfully linked to your spreadsheet in the background. If you previously opened your Avery Template in Word and see <<,Next Record>> on all of your labels but one, your previous merge didn’t successfully close. You might need to return to Avery for another blank copy and check Word for prompts to close or disconnect all previous connections.

Step 3: Arrange Your Label Layout

This is the fun part where you design how your label will look. You only need to set up the first label in the top-left corner. Word will handle replicating the layout for you.

1. Make sure your cursor is flashing in the first label space on the page.
2. On the Mailings tab, click the Insert Merge Field button. A dropdown list will appear showing all the column headers from your Excel file.
3. Select the first field you want to add, like "First_Name." You'll see <<First_Name>> appear in your label.
4. Now, add everything else you need, just as if you were typing a letter. Add a space by hitting the spacebar, then go back to Insert Merge Field and choose "Last_Name." Press Enter to move to the next line.
5. Continue inserting fields and adding punctuation (like spaces, commas) until your label is arranged correctly.

Your first label block will look something like this, filled with a different record from your list:

<<First_Name>> <<Last_Name>>,
<<Street_Address>>,
<<Company_Name>>,
<<City>>, <<State>> <<Zip_Code>>

Remember to insert your own punctuation and spacing between fields!

Step 4: Update the Rest of the Sheet

Once you’re happy with the layout of the first label, it’s time to apply that format to a full sheet of your label template. It may not seem at all remarkable, like very little has happened, but the magic of the mail merge feature means that’s all we will require to proceed with your complete dataset.

Still on the Mailings tab, look for and click the Update Labels button. Magically, Word will copy your layout to every other label on the sheet, populating them with <<,Next Record>> placeholders to signify it will pull the next entry from your Excel file for each subsequent label.

Step 5: Preview Your Labels

Before you commit to printing, you should always preview the results to make sure everything looks right. Click on the Preview Results button on the Mailings tab. You’ll see the merge field codes (<<First_Name>>, etc.) are swapped with the actual data from your list imported from the Excel spreadsheet, and the fields will adjust to fit your entries.

Use the arrow navigation buttons next to the Preview Results button to scroll through a few records of the import. Check for:

• Missing spaces between names or words
• Incorrect punctuation in the city/state/zip line
• Errors in text casing not caught during proofing

Step 6: Finish & Merge

Once you've confirmed that the labels look correct, it’s advisable to finalize your merge by creating a new document of the labels, providing yourself with more opportunities for quality control before printing all your labels.

1. Look for the last field of the Mail Merge pane, or find it atop your toolbars to access Finish & Merge, and make your selection in the dropdown menu of Edit Individual Documents....
2. In the small window that appears, select All and click OK. This creates one document with all labels.
3. Word will generate a brand new document titled "Labels1," filled with all your complete pages. From here, you’re free to make additional one-off changes or simply print and save with confidence. Be sure to save and rename from "Labels1."

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Sometimes things don’t go perfectly on the first try. Here are fixes for a few common mail merge hitches.

Problem: My zip codes are missing the leading zero.

Solution: This happens when Excel auto-formats the number and strips the zero. Re-open your original Excel file, select the entire zip code column, right-click and choose "Format Cells," and change the format to Text. Re-save the file and re-link it in Word.

Problem: The "Update Labels" button is grayed out.

Solution: This usually means you didn't properly initiate the process. Be absolutely sure that your first step on the Mailings tab was clicking Start Mail Merge > Labels... and selecting your label product number. If you just opened the template and started adding fields, Word doesn't know you're making labels.

Problem: The data is not merging, or it seems to pull from the wrong document entirely

Solution: The link of your previous session hasn't been closed, and Word isn’t using your current document’s parameters for the merge. Go back to avery.com for another copy of a blank template to begin. Make sure your data file has been properly disconnected from previous merges to avoid confusion.

Final Thoughts

Using Microsoft Word's mail merge feature with your Excel data transforms label-making from a tedious chore into an efficient, automated process. By carefully preparing your data and following the steps to arrange, preview, and merge, you can generate perfectly addressed labels or name tags in a matter of minutes, saving valuable time and eliminating errors.

Handling tasks like mailing labels is just one way businesses wrangle data. More often, you're trying to piece together insights from different marketing and sales platforms, exporting CSVs from Shopify, Google Ads, and other marketing apps, then painstakingly trying to connect them. We built Graphed to automate that messy reporting process. Instead of spending hours in spreadsheets, you can hook all those sources to Graphed, and then use plain English to build real-time dashboards in seconds—instantly turning that hours-long data headache into a quick conversation.