Labels Unlimited. (labeling software) (Software Review) (Evaluation)
by Fred Blechman

This program's title might convey the impression that it's just another program to produce mailing labels. Not so! In fact, using this program just for mailing labels would be like killing a fly with a baseball bat. Actually, Labels Unlimited is a powerful and versatile program that allows you to create a wide variety of professional-looking disk labels, name tags, tickets, coupons, product or inventory labels, binder covers, and labels for audio- and videocassettes, as well as plain or fancy mailing labels.

Instead of being limited to the few fonts provided by typical printers, you can choose from two different typefaces, point sizes from 4 to 144, and regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles. Further variety can be added with horizontal, vertical, and even upside-down text! If that isn't enough, additional typefaces (the same used with Power Up's popular Express Publisher program) are available.

Labels Unlimited lets you add PCX graphic clip art, and more than 40 such images are included. An on-screen preview before printing is available if you have a graphic (CGA, EGA, VGA, or Hercules) display. The printing can be up to 300 dots per inch on laser, ink-jet, and most dot-matrix printers.

You can create product tags and sequentially numbered admission tickets or coupons. Enhancements include boxes, borders, shading, and dingbats. In effect, Labels Unlimited is a desktop publishing program designed to produce multiple copies of the same or similar layout and copy.

To make things simple, you can print directly on label stock from Avery, 3M, Moore, Dennison, and others, since templates for their most popular stock labels are provided in the program. If you choose, you can customize to any size from 1/4 x 1/4 inch to 11 x 13 inches. If you select a standard label, the dimensions and number on a page are defined.

Each label can be divided into up to six printing areas called zones, with 18 zone layouts provided within the program. You really don't need imagination as much as the ability to make a choice and follow program prompts.

Labels Unlimited lets you create templates to import data from ASCII text files, as well as delimited or fixed file structures. Similarly, you can export all the data from an existing Labels Unlimited file to a comma-delimited ASCII text file, which can then be imported by most database programs.

The program's 150+- page manual is very detailed, well indexed, and liberally illustrated. A tutorial takes you through creating and printing a videocassette label with two fonts and a graphic. A handy two-sided quick-reference card summarizes the instructions, the keyboard shortcuts, and the most important commands. This card will be all you'll need after a couple of hours of practice, with the manual as backup for further details.

Labels Unlimited is very powerful and versatile, with so many features that you can easily get confused. If you only need to print out labels from a mailing list, get a mailing-list program. For special labels of all sorts with jazzy printing and graphics, however, it will be worth a few hours of practice to use Labels Unlimited. IBM PC and compatibles, graphics card (required only for optional previewing,) hard drive or two floppy drives; supports most graphic printers--$89,95 POWER UP SOFTWARE 2929 Campus Dr. San Mateo, CA 94403 (800) 851-2917 Circle Reader Service Number 3.58