Family abroad, customers in other countries, a school with parents who write in five alphabets: real address lists are rarely only in English. Many label tools print such names as empty boxes or question marks, or run Arabic letters backwards and unjoined. This guide shows how to print them correctly from a Google Sheet.
The steps use Peelstack Label Maker, our add-on for Google Sheets.
What prints correctly
The add-on prints 24 writing systems, which covers most languages:
- Arabic and Hebrew run right to left, with Arabic letters joined the way they are written. A label whose text is Arabic or Hebrew lines up on the right; a postcode or house number on that label follows the same side.
- Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Chinese, Japanese and Korean share many characters that are drawn a little differently in each. The add-on uses a Japanese font when your list has kana or your Google language is Japanese, a Korean font for lists with Hangul or a Korean Google language, a Traditional Chinese font when your Google language is Chinese (Taiwan or Hong Kong), and a Simplified Chinese font otherwise.
- Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, Thai, Lao, Khmer and Burmese, whose letters combine, stack or change order, are shaped the way they should look, not as loose pieces. We check each of these against the way Google Chrome draws them.
- Georgian, Armenian and Amharic (Ethiopic) print with their own fonts.
- Greek, Cyrillic, Vietnamese and Latin letters with accents, such as Łódź, São Paulo or Nguyễn.
Different scripts can sit on the same sheet, and even on the same label. The add-on loads the fonts it needs for the scripts in your list the first time; you see a short "Loading fonts" message while it does.
How to print them
- Keep your list in a Google Sheet with one address per row and column names in row 1. Type or paste the addresses as they should appear.
- Go to Extensions, Peelstack Label Maker, Create labels and type the number on your label box, such as Avery® 5160 on Letter (5160 details) or L7160 on A4 (L7160 details).
- Check the lines the add-on suggests, for example
{Name},{Address},{City} {Postcode},{Country}. Empty lines are left out. - Look at the preview. If a character is missing from every font the add-on has, it would print as an empty box, so the preview warns first and says which rows and which characters; change them before you print.
- Click Download PDF and print at Actual size (100%) on the right paper size.
Tips for international addresses
- Write the address in the destination country's order. The add-on prints the lines you set in the order you set them. If some addresses need a different order, add a column with the full address lines prepared in the sheet and print that column instead.
- Put the destination country on the last line in your own country's language (for example in English if you post from the US or UK), so your post office can route it. The rest of the address can stay in the local script.
- Keep postcodes as text. Format the postcode column as Plain text (Format, Number, Plain text) so codes with leading zeros keep them.
- Long names shrink to fit their own label and never push the others out of place. The preview lists any row that was printed smaller or shortened.
The add-on in your language
The add-on's own menus and messages are available in 29 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. It follows the language of your Google account.
What it costs
Peelstack Label Maker is free with every feature for up to 30 labels per run, one full sheet of Avery 5160 address labels, and you can run it as often as you like. A longer list prints its first 30 labels on the free plan, and the preview shows exactly those. Test pages are always free. Every plan reads up to 10,000 rows of a sheet at a time and makes up to 50,000 labels per run. A paid plan removes the 30 label limit: $29 for one year or $59 once. No subscription, nothing renews.
Avery® is a trademark of Avery Products Corporation. Taskivator is not affiliated with Avery.