In Excel: Excel holds the addresses; Word prints the labels. In Word choose Mailings ▸ Start Mail Merge ▸ Labels, pick the label product, then Select Recipients ▸ Use an Existing List and point at the workbook.
On this page7
In Excel: one row per recipient, plain headers in row 1, no blank rows or merged cells, and store ZIP/postcodes as text.
Save and close the workbook — Word cannot read it reliably while it is open.
In Word: Mailings ▸ Start Mail Merge ▸ Labels, and choose the exact product code from the label packet.
Mailings ▸ Select Recipients ▸ Use an Existing List, choose the workbook and then the sheet.
In the first label, insert the fields (Address Block, or one Insert Merge Field at a time) and format them there.
Click Update Labels — this is the step that fills the rest of the sheet.
Preview Results, then Finish & Merge ▸ Edit Individual Documents, and check before sending it to the printer.
What this does
There is no label printing in Excel, and this is the single most common misunderstanding behind the question. The division of labour is fixed: the spreadsheet is the data source — one row per recipient, one column per field, headers in row 1 — and Word's mail merge lays those fields onto a label sheet whose dimensions it already knows for every Avery and equivalent product code. The step people miss is "Update Labels", the button that copies the field layout from the first label to all the others; without it you get one address and a page of blanks. The other recurring problem is formatting: mail merge passes the UNDERLYING value, so a ZIP code stored as the number 02134 merges as 2134. The fix is to store such fields as text in Excel, not to reformat them in Word. The same idea underpins a lot of everyday Excel work, so the few minutes spent getting it right here pay back across every sheet you build afterwards. Treat it as a pattern, not a one-off, and it stops being something you look up and starts being something you reach for. Treat “create labels in excel” as a small repeatable workflow rather than a one-off click you hope to remember next time. Use a small test block before the live file, so any surprise in the affected cells shows up while it is still harmless. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. That turns a layout choice that keeps the sheet readable and sortable into a method you can reuse, explain, and defend when the workbook leaves your screen.
A worked example
Sheet1 has First, Last, Street, City, State, ZIP in A1:F1 with 220 rows beneath. In Word: Mailings ▸ Start Mail Merge ▸ Labels ▸ Avery US Letter 5160 ▸ OK. Select Recipients ▸ Use an Existing List ▸ the .xlsx ▸ Sheet1$. In the first label, Address Block or individual Insert Merge Field entries. Then Update Labels, Preview Results to check label one and label two differ, and Finish & Merge ▸ Edit Individual Documents to get a document you can inspect before printing. The whole job is data hygiene plus one button most people never find, and knowing that in advance turns an afternoon of misaligned test prints into ten minutes. When the result is not what you expected, undo straight away rather than repairing it by hand — undo restores the sheet exactly, while manual fixes tend to leave small inconsistencies behind that surface later.
In Google Sheets
This is a command rather than a formula, so there is no syntax to carry over. Google Sheets arranges its commands in menus across the top instead of a ribbon, names some of them differently and does not have every Excel command — look for the equivalent in the Sheets menus or its help before assuming the steps match. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. Here is the takeaway for “create labels in excel”: follow the steps at the top, check the result on the sheet itself, and keep undo in mind while you experiment. Done once deliberately, it becomes something you do from memory in Excel rather than something you search for again.
Common mistakes
- Looking for a label feature in Excel; the merge lives in Word, with Excel as the data source.
- Skipping Update Labels and printing one address followed by blank labels.
- Merging ZIP codes stored as numbers, which drops the leading zero — store them as text in Excel.
- Leaving blank rows or merged cells in the source, which truncates or misaligns the recipient list.
- Formatting fields after Update Labels instead of before, so the formatting reaches only the first label.
- Printing all 12 sheets before test-printing one on plain paper and holding it against the label sheet.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make mailing labels from an Excel spreadsheet?
Use Word: Mailings ▸ Start Mail Merge ▸ Labels, pick the product code, then Select Recipients ▸ Use an Existing List and choose the workbook.
Can I print labels directly from Excel?
No. Excel has no label layout; it supplies the addresses and Word's mail merge prints them.
Why does only the first label have an address?
You have not clicked Update Labels, which copies the field layout from the first label to every other label on the sheet.
Why did the leading zero disappear from my ZIP codes?
The merge passes the underlying number. Store the ZIP column as text in Excel before merging — a number format alone does not survive the merge.
How should the spreadsheet be set up?
One row per recipient, one column per field, headers in row 1, no blank rows, no merged cells, and the file closed while Word reads it.
Other ways people ask this
On the way here you may have searched this as “how to make labels in excel”, “create labels using excel”, “create a label in excel” and “how to make label in excel” — it is all the same task, and this page is the single, complete answer to it.
Why do people search for this in so many different ways?
Because the same task has many names. “how to make labels in excel”, “create labels using excel”, “create a label in excel” all point at the one operation explained on this page, which is why they all lead here.