Label Templates: Don't Let The Pitch Trip You Up

Don't know your margins from your pitches? Here's a handy guide to these template measurements.

When setting up a template, getting the dimensions right is of the utmost importance. After all, a template that isn't the same size as your labels isn't of much use at all!

But keeping all those measurements straight can be a little tricky - particularly if you aren't familiar with the terms used. There are two terms that tend to confuse people more often than the rest - margin and pitch.

Margins simply account for the blank space (if any) around the edge of the sheet. Thus we have a:

• TOP MARGIN: the measurement from the top of the sheet to the top edge of the top label/row of labels on the sheet.
• BOTTOM MARGIN: the measurement from the bottom of the sheet to the bottom edge of the last label/row of labels on the sheet.
• LEFT MARGIN: the measurement from the left edge of the sheet in to the left edge of the first label/column of labels on the sheet.
• RIGHT MARGIN: the measurement from the right edge of the sheet in to the right edge of the last label/column of labels on the sheet.

Perhaps slightly more confusing is the pitch - usually referred to as the horizontal pitch and the vertical pitch. These measurements take into account any spaces BETWEEN the labels - both above and below the labels (vertical) and to the left and right of the labels (horizontal).

The vertical pitch is defined as the measurement from the top of the first label to the top of the label below it. The horizontal pitch is defined as the measurement from the left edge of the first label to the left edge of the label next to it.

If you are setting up a custom label template in Word, you will need to enter the four margin measurements (if any), the height and width of the labels, the number of labels in each row, the number of labels in each column, the dimensions of the sheet, and the vertical and horizontal pitches.

Our templates have been set up as grids and we have, where possible, added in rows or columns to represent the gaps between the labels. These rows and columns are set to the same size as the gaps between the labels, meaning that the cells representing the labels are exactly the same dimensions as the labels themselves. You should be careful when copying and pasting your design in these templates. If you copy and paste into ALL of the rows and columns at once (including the rows and columns that represent the gaps between the labels), the alignment could be affected as your software may try to account for a large design being pasted into a small space. In some cases, the entire grid may be resized automatically to fit the design. You may find that you can paste into entire rows or columns at a time (if only the vertical or the horizontal pitch is represented) OR you may find that you simply need to copy and paste into each cell individually.

Some of our products have gaps between the labels of 2mm or less. The templates for these items do not have rows/columns to represent the pitch as Word simply cannot create rows and columns of this size. In these templates, the cells representing the labels account for both the dimensions of the label AND the gaps on the sheet. While these templates do tend to allow a design to be copied and pasted into all of the cells at once, care should be taken to check the alignment of the printed design as the gaps between the labels need to be accounted for manually.

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