Efficient printing of USPS shipping labels

Sample Label

Sharing biz tips for makers, this is what it’s all about – Efficient printing of USPS shipping labels @ Wayne and Layne

When you use the online USPS shipping label generator (we use it via paypal), it generates a full page of information. The top half of the page is the label you affix to the package, and the other half is full of extra info that isn’t needed for the shipping label. If you want to use full-page label sheets, you really don’t want to waste half the page each time you print a label. To work around this, we developed a script to split a PDF into top- and bottom-half PDFs, enabling you to only print the top half (the actual label) while leaving the bottom half of the label page usable for the next label you print.

For example, here’s a slightly-doctored image of the original printing label.


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4 Comments

  1. This is a little strange, they say they’re printing it through the paypal usps route? All you have to do is unclick “print receipt” in the paypal label printing options and it achieves this without any additional work.

  2. more detailed response:

    paypal -> profile -> more options -> my selling tools -> shipping preferences -> update -> usps edit printer settings -> uncheck “print receipt”

    saves you all that extra trouble.

  3. If you are shipping more than a few things a week, it’s totally worth it to get a Zebra/Eltron thermal label printer. Much faster than printing, cutting, taping. Much cheaper than the laser/inkjet labels.

  4. Even if you print without the receipt, it will still have superfluous stuff (Headers, Paypal logo on the bottom, the cut line, footer).

    What I do is just resize Adobe Acrobat Reader’s window to only show the label, and in the print window, choose “Print Current View”. I also choose a 5.5 x 8.5 paper size (Half a 11×8.5 normal page), perfect for those two labels per page label sheets.

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