How to print envelopes at home

Three ways to print an address on an envelope

There are three ways to do it at home, and the right one depends on your envelopes and your printer. The first is to print straight onto the envelope: you set up a page the exact size of the envelope, place the return address and the recipient's address, and feed the envelope through like a small, thick sheet of paper. In our editor you choose the size, for example #10 (4⅛ × 9½ in) or A7 (5¼ × 7¼ in), type the addresses into a ready layout and export a PDF whose page is exactly the size of the envelope, so the layout isn't squeezed onto a Letter or A4 sheet. It gives the cleanest result, which is why people use it for invitations and cards, and how to address an envelope explains where each line goes.

The second way is to print address labels on a sheet of sticky labels and put one on each envelope. A label sheet feeds like ordinary paper, so this is the safer route when an envelope is too thick, too wide or too glossy for your printer. The trade-off is that a label looks more like business mail.

The third way is a word processor. Microsoft Word has an Envelopes button on its Mailings tab, where you type both addresses, pick the envelope size and see a small picture of how to load it, and its mail merge can pull addresses from an Excel file. It works, though the options take some finding. Google Docs has no envelope tool of its own, so there you would rely on an add-on or a ready-made template.

How to feed an envelope and set up the printer

Most spoiled envelopes come from the feeding, not the design. If your printer has a rear tray or a manual feed slot, use it, because the paper path from there is straighter than from the main cassette and a stiff envelope is less likely to crease or jam. Load one envelope at a time until you know it works, slide the paper guides in until they just touch its edges, and check the small icon on the tray or in the manual, which shows whether the printed side faces up or down and where the flap goes. In most printers the flap stays closed but unsealed, on the side that won't be printed.

Then tell the printer what it's getting. In the print dialog, set the paper size to the envelope's size, either from the driver's list of envelope sizes or as a custom size, and set the paper type to Envelope if your printer offers it. Set the scale to 100% or Actual size rather than Fit to page, because fitting shrinks the layout and moves the address.

Before you use a good envelope, do a test on plain paper. Mark one corner of an ordinary sheet with an X, load it the way you plan to load the envelope, and print: the result shows which side and which edge the printer writes on, and if you lay the envelope over the printout you can see whether the address lands where you want it. A sheet of paper costs nothing, while a misprinted invitation envelope is usually the one you have no spare for.

Which envelopes fit your printer

Most home printers, inkjet and laser alike, take paper up to 8.5 in (216 mm) wide, the width of a sheet of US Letter, and an envelope has to pass through the same opening. An envelope whose long side is wider than that goes in short edge first, and one that is wider than 8.5 in both ways won't go through at all. This is how the common sizes work out:

The catalog envelope is the one that catches people out, so for that size an address label is the practical answer. Every other size is in the list of envelope sizes.

The type of printer matters as much as its width. An inkjet sprays liquid ink, which soaks into ordinary uncoated envelopes and dries in seconds but sits on top of glossy or coated ones and smears. A laser printer fuses powdered toner onto the paper with heat and pressure, which gives crisp text, but that heat can activate the glue on a lick-and-seal flap and stick the envelope shut, soften a self-seal strip or warp a plastic window. With a laser printer, buy envelopes marked as laser-safe, and keep padded envelopes and ones with metal clasps out of any printer.

Printing a whole mailing list from a spreadsheet

For holiday cards, wedding invitations or a mailing to customers, typing every address is slow and invites mistakes. Mail merge does it for you: you keep the addresses in a spreadsheet, with one row per person and one column per part of the address (name, street, city, state, ZIP code), and the program puts each row into the address block of its own envelope.

In our editor the merge takes an Excel file, a CSV or a Google Sheets export and prints one envelope or one address label per row. It needs a free account, which includes five batch exports a month, and Pro has no limit. A typical run goes like this:

1. Tidy the spreadsheet first: give it a header row and remove empty rows and stray spaces, since each one turns into a blank or crooked line.
2. Open the envelope size you're using and set up the return address and the style of the recipient block.
3. Import the spreadsheet, export the batch, and print the first envelope on plain paper to check the placement.
4. Print the rest in small stacks rather than a full tray, since a crowded tray tends to feed two envelopes at once.

If you'd rather stick labels on, printing address labels from Excel works the same way, with a whole sheet of labels printing in one pass.

Fixing smudges, jams and misplaced text

Smudges on an inkjet usually mean the ink hasn't dried or the envelope's surface won't absorb it. Leave each envelope face up for a minute instead of stacking it on the last one, choose a plain paper or envelope setting rather than photo paper, which lays down more ink, and use labels on glossy envelopes. On a laser printer, toner that rubs off under a finger wasn't fused properly, which usually means the paper type is set too light; choose Envelope or Heavy so the printer slows down and fuses it with more heat.

Envelopes jam and crease because they are thicker at the flap and seams than in the middle, so the rollers grip them unevenly. Use the rear or manual tray, flatten each envelope with your hand, since a curled one catches, and keep the guides snug but not tight. Some laser printers also have envelope levers at the back that ease the pressure on the fuser, and lifting them often stops the wrinkle that would otherwise run along one edge.

When the address comes out in the wrong place, the paper size and scale are the usual cause. If the print dialog still says Letter or A4, the printer treats the envelope as the corner of a big sheet and the text lands off-center or off the edge, so set the paper size to the envelope and the scale to 100%. If the address is sideways or upside down, switch between portrait and landscape or turn the envelope in the tray, and if it's only slightly out, move the block in your layout. Printers differ in whether they center narrow paper or push it to one side, which is why the plain-paper test is worth the minute it takes.