Industry Trends

How to Print Avery 5163 Labels: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Office Administrators

How to Print Avery 5163 Labels: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Office Administrators

If you're responsible for ordering and printing shipping labels for your office, this checklist is for you. I've been the office administrator for a 45-person company since 2020, managing about $8,000 in label and printing supplies annually across 4 vendors. After botching my first big label print job—200 sheets of 5163s that came out misaligned because I skipped a step—I put together this process.

This covers the Avery 5163 specifically (the 2" × 4" shipping label, 10 per sheet). Total steps: 7. Takes about 15 minutes your first time, maybe 5 minutes once you've done it a few times.

Step 1: Verify You Have the Right Label Stock

Before you touch your computer, check the label package. You're looking for "5163" on the Avery packaging—not 8163, not 5263. They look similar but the adhesive and sheet coating differ.

It took me 3 years and about 150 orders to understand that grabbing the wrong label number wastes way more time than double-checking upfront. The 8163 is the inkjet version; 5163 is laser. Use the wrong one and you'll get smearing or poor adhesion.

Quick check:

• Package says "5163" (laser) or "8163" (inkjet)
• Match to your printer type
• Sheets aren't curled or stuck together

Step 2: Access the Template from avery.com/templates

Go to avery.com/templates and search "5163." You'll get options to open in Avery Design & Print, Microsoft Word, or download for other software.

Here's what I've learned: the Avery Design & Print online tool works fine for basic text labels. But if you need to mail merge from a spreadsheet, download the Word template instead. The online tool's merge function is clunky—I spent 45 minutes fighting with it before switching to Word.

For Google Docs users: Avery doesn't have a native Google Docs template for 5163, but you can download the Word version and upload it to Google Drive. It converts reasonably well. At least, that's been my experience with standard text-only labels.

Step 3: Set Up Your Data Source (If Mail Merging)

Skip this if you're typing addresses manually.

For mail merge, your spreadsheet needs clean column headers. I use:

• Name
• Company
• Address1
• Address2
• City
• State
• ZIP

The conventional wisdom is to export directly from your CRM. My experience with our Salesforce export suggests otherwise—the address fields often have weird line breaks that mess up label formatting. I now copy to a clean Excel file first and remove any hidden characters. Takes an extra 5 minutes but saves a reprint.

Per USPS Business Mail 101, standard address formatting should have the delivery address on one line, city/state/ZIP on the next. All caps is preferred for machine reading but not required for small batches.

Step 4: Configure Page Setup (The Step Everyone Skips)

This is the one that got me on my first big order.

Before printing, check your page setup:

• Paper size: Letter (8.5" × 11")
• Margins: The Avery template should set these automatically, but verify they're at 0.5" top/bottom, roughly 0.156" sides
• Scaling: 100% (not "Fit to Page")

That last one—scaling—is the killer. If your print dialog defaults to "Fit to Page" or "Shrink to Fit," your labels will print slightly smaller than the die-cut openings. You won't notice until you try to peel them and realize every label is offset by 2mm.

I want to say I've wasted maybe 50 sheets on scaling issues over the years, but don't quote me on that. It's enough that I now triple-check this setting.

Step 5: Run a Test Print on Plain Paper

Print one page on regular paper first. Hold it up against a blank label sheet with a light behind them.

You're checking:

• Text falls within each label boundary
• Alignment is consistent top to bottom (bottom labels often drift)
• No text is cut off

At around $0.25-0.40 per sheet for 5163 labels (based on publicly listed prices, January 2025—verify current rates), a test print on $0.01 paper is a no-brainer. Even after 5 years of managing procurement, I still do this step. The one time I skipped it to save 2 minutes, I ruined 30 sheets. That's $9-12 in labels plus the reorder delay.

Step 6: Adjust Printer Settings for Label Stock

Label sheets are thicker than regular paper. Most printers need a settings adjustment:

For laser printers:

• Paper type: Labels or Heavy (not Auto-detect)
• Paper source: Manual feed tray usually works better than the main cassette
• If your printer has a "straight-through" paper path, use it—reduces curl and jamming

For inkjet (8163 labels):

• Paper type: Matte or Labels
• Quality: Normal or High (draft mode can smear)

Everything I'd read about label printing said to use the main paper tray for efficiency. In practice, I found manual feed reduces jams by a ton—seriously, went from jamming every 20 sheets to maybe once per 100.

Step 7: Print in Small Batches

Don't send 200 sheets to the printer at once. Print 10-20 at a time.

Why: Label adhesive can soften slightly in the fuser heat. Stack 50 warm sheets on top of each other and you risk them sticking together or the adhesive oozing at the edges. Plus, if something goes wrong on sheet 15, you catch it before wasting sheets 16-200.

I process 60-80 label orders annually, and batch printing has saved me from multiple disasters. Had one situation where the toner cartridge was low and started fading around sheet 12. If I'd printed all 80 sheets, I'd have had 68 unusable ones.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Running label sheets through twice. If a sheet jams or prints wrong, don't flip it and reuse the other side. The labels have already been through the fuser once; running them again can cause adhesive to melt onto printer components. The vendor who sold me a replacement fuser for $340 could've mentioned this upfront—though I should note this was on an older HP, newer models might be more tolerant.

Storing labels in humid areas. I keep ours in a cabinet away from the break room (steam from the coffee maker, apparently). Humidity makes labels curl and jam.

Using the "fast draft" setting. Saves ink/toner but the print density is too light for shipping labels. Recipients (and sometimes scanning equipment) can't read them.

Ignoring printer cleaning. If you print labels regularly, adhesive residue builds up. Clean the paper path every 500 sheets or so, per most printer manufacturer recommendations.

Quick Reference: TCO Thinking for Label Supplies

Since you're probably comparing options for your office, here's how I think about label costs now. The $45 for 2,500 labels quote turned into $52 after shipping. The $50 all-inclusive quote from another supplier was actually cheaper.

I calculate total cost of ownership before comparing any vendor quotes:

• Per-label cost
• Shipping (some suppliers offer free shipping over $50)
• Your time if you need to reorder frequently vs. buying in bulk
• Waste rate (cheap labels might jam more often)

Bottom line: the process above takes 15 minutes to learn, 5 minutes to execute. It's eliminated about 90% of our label printing problems. The other 10% is printer issues that no process can fix—but that's a different checklist.