[texhax] Printing address on envelope

[Pierre MacKay]

If you make the conversion to PDF, and have a good printer interface for 
the PDF, it is pretty easy.  (CUPS does it just fine.)

I assume you have sliding guides in the MANUAL slot for the printer.

Set up a second page for the address, and make a couple of runs to get 
the addressing parts for the envelope down toward the middle of the 
page.  The final position will seem a bit counterintuitive on most 
printers, but once you have done it it is a model for the future.

Waste an envelope or so (use really cheap thin ones) seeing whether you 
have the following correct.

Portrait or Landscape

Paper size for the printer.  If you get this right, the image on the 
print menu will show it right.

Auto Rotate and Scale for the printer.  (This is the real trick)



Now print it on a test envelope. On most desktop printers, the envelope 
goes in printable side up with the flap to the right,
but you can find that out by inserting a blank sheet of paper, with a 
mark on one side so that you really know which side was printed.

Adjust the position of the address text as needed.  One or two 
adjustments whould do.

Once it works, save the address sheet details as part of a letter.sty 
(or whatever LaTeX calls it) file.

You can do really elegant things with the return address that way.  I 
use Goudy Hand-Tooled for one return address, because it is relevant to 
the typesetting I do at that address.  (But it is wise not to get too 
inventive.)

Pi