My reports/mailing labels aren't being correctly formatted during printing. How can I fix this?

Browser margin settings are typically the culprit here. In Internet Explorer and Firefox, the settings can be easily adjusted so that labels will print as they should. The best option for Safari and Chrome users is to export the report to a comma-delimited file and import to an application of your choice, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, to print the labels.

For general printing of reports and forms, OutreachSystems recommends that you set margins to the following:

  • Top margin = .5”
  • Bottom margin = .5”
  • Left margin = .5”
  • Right margin = .5”

The majority of your reports and forms should print nicely with these margin settings in place, although you may still need to make minor modifications on occasion depending on what you are printing.

One report that we know requires settings other than the general .5 margin rule is the Address Mailing Labels report. This report uses the Avery 5160 address label format which is the standard 1" x 2.625" mailing label (30 labels per page). Because WebCATS is rendering these labels in HTML, you must set very specific margin settings in IE and Firefox in order for the labels to print correctly. The following settings should be used in Internet Explorer:

  • Top margin = .5"
  • Bottom margin = 0" (IE will replace the zero with the minimum values supported by the driver)
  • Left margin = .25"
  • Right margin = 0" (IE will replace the zero with the minimum values supported by the driver)
  • Headers and footers should be blank

Follow the next set of steps to adjust Internet Explorer’s margin settings. Note: These new settings will apply to all documents printed from the Web, not just those printed from WebCATS.

  1. From Internet Explorer, select File|Page Setup or click the down arrow next to the printer icon and select “Page Setup”. This opens the Page Setup window.
  2. Adjust the margins appropriately.

    3. Note: You can also remove the header and footer that Internet Explorer automatically adds to printed documents from this window, as discussed here.

  3. Click OK.

If you are using Firefox as your browser, the following margin settings are recommended:

  • Top margin = .25"
  • Bottom margin = 0"
  • Left margin = 0"
  • Right margin = 0"
  • Headers and footers should be left blank

To change margin settings in Firefox, follow these steps:

  1. From Firefox, select File|Page Setup and select the "Margins & Header/Footer" tab.
  2. Adjust the margins appropriately from the Page Setup screen.
  3. Click OK.
 

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