Mail Factory delivers the goods
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Feb 6, 2006 at 10:45pm
If you are like me, people struggle to read your handwriting (thank goodness for Pages!) but that doesn’t help you when you need to address an envelope. The poor people at the post office have to try and read my writing and work out whether I am posting a letter to Aunt Bess in Sydney or Uncle Bill in Seattle. But no more, for there is now a program Mail Factory from BeLight Software.
Mail Factory allows you to print a choice of either labels, envelopes or postcards. In each case, there is a wide range of paper sizes for envelopes and choices from manufacturers including Avery and Xerox for labels. It is simply a case of choosing which size you want before the assistant then moves to the positioning screen - simply how do you want the end product to look, do you want it left or right justified, what colour etc.
One of the best features is next and that is the seamless integration of Address Book with recipient screen. You simply choose one of your contacts and all the details are populated into the label etc. If you don’t use address book for your data, other choices available include Entourage, Eudora, Now up to date, Filemaker Pro, Excel or vCard format. Finally you get a preview screen allowing you to add very useful labels like “do not bend” for envelopes, etc., and the ability to add clipart pictures.
A few small issues weight on the program however— as an example in the postcard assistant, one of the options is “birthday whishes,” a simple error, but one which detracts from the overall quality. Also, the recipient window only allows one line for an address, so there maybe some issues if you are trying to send someone a letter if he or she has a long address.
Except for these small issues, the overall program is great. It integrates well with other applications and makes professional looking labels, envelopes or postcards. If you write a lot of letters, print labels or send a lot of postcards, then Mail Factory is an application to seriously consider if you are aiming to impress.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later.
Macsimum rating: 7 out of 10
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 10,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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