User Support Forum

Hey all -
Does anyone have a workaround for Family Names that are too long?
There are two levels to this issue:

1) The name ("James Morgan and Susan Barr-Morgan") will fit in the database field, but is too long for the mailing label format (3-column labels). The solution there is to switch to wider labels and/or to create a Custom Report that prints the labels in Times New Roman, 10 pt.

It would be nice if the Family Name line on the report were smart enough to word wrap, however. I need to investigate this in the Custom Reports setup.

2) The name ("Christy Ray Snellengrove and Mark Bannenberger") is simply too long for the NAMELINE field in the database (I think the field width is 33 characters). Even substituting an ampersand, in this case, doesn't bring the name to a usable width.

So far, our workaround is to place the second name on the first line of the address. Unfortunately, this creates a bogus line in the Directory output, and blows away the map lookup (an extremely nifty feature I only just the other day showed to our secretary).

Does anyone else have thoughts on the Family Name too long issue?

Brian Shoemaker
First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Canton MA

BrianShoe wrote:Hey all -
Does anyone have a workaround for Family Names that are too long?
There are two levels to this issue:

1) The name ("James Morgan and Susan Barr-Morgan") will fit in the database field, but is too long for the mailing label format (3-column labels). The solution there is to switch to wider labels and/or to create a Custom Report that prints the labels in Times New Roman, 10 pt.

It would be nice if the Family Name line on the report were smart enough to word wrap, however. I need to investigate this in the Custom Reports setup.

2) The name ("Christy Ray Snellengrove and Mark Bannenberger") is simply too long for the NAMELINE field in the database (I think the field width is 33 characters). Even substituting an ampersand, in this case, doesn't bring the name to a usable width.

So far, our workaround is to place the second name on the first line of the address. Unfortunately, this creates a bogus line in the Directory output, and blows away the map lookup (an extremely nifty feature I only just the other day showed to our secretary).

Does anyone else have thoughts on the Family Name too long issue?

Brian Shoemaker
First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Canton MA

We had the same problem .. we just used the standard Avery 3 across label format, then cloned it and modified it to use Arial 12 font as a custom label setup. It allows for longer names, however, I'm not sure that your item 2 above would fit even under 12 pitch.