So now you need to know how to make business cards? You finally did it, and started your own business. It’s exciting, scary and expensive, so if you are like most new small business owners, then you probably have a budget and are trying to keep costs to a minimum. One of the most important things to do is to market your new business and get the word out there that you have new products and services to offer. In keeping costs down, Microsoft Word is fantastic in helping you develop your own marketing materials. In this lesson, I will you show how to create your own business cards in Microsoft Word. But to be honest, the easiest most time efficient way I have found is to just order through vistaprint , You get 250 cards for just shipping and handling and they look tremendously professional, I think you have to add $1 to have a clear backside , but that’s about it, total is about $8 and it’s on your doorstep in a few days. You can click here for that. The bad news is it’s only valid for Canada and the US. Sorry to you guys in India, I know a lot of you visit here.
For this lesson, we’ll pretend that your new business is about financial consulting. First, you will need to have Microsoft Word 2003 or above, access to the internet to download the template, the special paper to print business cards, and finally have an extra toner for your printer. You can buy the special paper at an office supply store like Office Depot For example, you can get the Avery Packet for about $15.99 at Office Depot, which brings 200 cards of 2″ X 3 1/2″ size.
We’ll use the following fictitious business contact information:
Mary Smith
Money Hope
Certified Financial Planner
P.O. Box 90088
Miami, FL 36754
Tel 788-908-5567
Fax 788-908-5568
mary@moneyhope.com
Let’s get started!
1. Go to Start>Programs>Internet Explorer (or your particular internet browser) to access the internet. Enter the Microsoft internet address, www.microsoft.com and hit enter or the search button. The main web page should look like the image below.
2. Click on “Downloads & Trials” located to the upper right hand corner of the web page.
3. Now click on the “Office Templates” option and a new web page will open.
4. Here you will see the office online template web page. Enter “business cards templates” in the search box (located to the upper left hand corner right under the menu options) and click the search button or hit Enter.
5. Go down and click on option four called “General Business Cards” to select it. Please note you need to check the template’s program version and make sure you have that program version installed in your computer or you will not be able to download the template; for example, the template we are using in this lesson requires version Word 97 or later and we are using Word 2003, so we should not have any problems downloading this template.
6. Now click on the “Download Now” button to download the template. Next, Microsoft Word will open automatically with the template as a new document.
7. In this step, you see that the template opens up in Microsoft Word. Before customizing the template, go to File>Save As and save the template as new document so that you don’t loose any work.
8. Now enter the business contact information into the template as seen below. You can enter the information for all the card entries or just enter it once and copy and paste in the other entries. You will be able to print ten business cards from one sheet of paper.
9. Finally, go to File>Print Preview to preview the sheet, then place the special business card paper in your printer and print one test page to make sure the information prints successfully. After testing it, then feel free to insert a couple of sheets of paper and print several pages at once. With just five printed sheets of paper, you will have 50 business cards ready, and then just carefully tear each card individually, the paper comes pre-perforated to allow for easy tearing.
You did it! See how easy and fast was to create your own business cards? Now, It’s good to create your own business cards, but over the years I have found that sometimes the time,effort and money aren’t worth it, with companies like this one here willing to do business cards for the cost of shipping and handling, you have to really weigh your options. And if you have other more sophisticated programs like Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft Outlook you can find other fantastic templates for business cards if you want to create new ones or change old ones. Good luck handing out your new cards!
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All I want is to design my card on a plain white template. I cannot, for the life of me, get Office 2007 let me do this. I’ve opened mailings, clicked on labels, selected business cards, and then can’t do a thing. In fact, Office tells me to create a card on Publisher (which I did, easily), but my printer doesn’t happen to use Publisher.
Help!
Thank you very much
this lesson was realy helpful
How do you change the clip art or picture on this template?
I sympathize with Mogana…Office 2007 is inane. Where do I get a BLANK template for Avery 8371 business cards? Why won’t Microsoft let me design my own damn cards using Word (like I used to)?? I hate it when Microsoft designs their software to try to think for you…they always get it wrong (see Vista debacle)!
Great lesson, but I want to replace that logo with my own logo. The template will not let me insert my own logo from file. Help!
Thank you!
Why hasn’t anyone answered these questions?? I have the same problem. I need a blank template to enter my own info and MY OWN IMAGE! I too have template 8371. I do not have Publisher.
Can’t even do it on the Avery website.And certianly not on Microsoft Word :Tools/Envelopes/Labels.
Would love a cure!
Frustrated~~~~~
Sorry guys, the reason I haven’t answered the question of the blank template is because I haven’t started using Excel 2007 yet.
So if I understand it correctly Excel 2007 doesn’t allow you to create a blank template?
Ditto!! Something so simple that Microsoft had to mess up! Now it looks like I will have to PAY a print shop to design my business cards unless I want to use MS Word’s lame templates ( which you cannot modify effectively! )
Ditto w/ the Avery site.
Ok everyone - If you want to do your own in word 2007 you can use this method. My margins are for a Wausau Linen business card but just look up your margins and change them. The trick is to start a new Doc and actually make “Labels.”
So… Tools -> Mailings Tab
Create -> Labels
Click Options then ‘New Label’
Here you can choose vendors included in the drop down menu under ‘Label Vendors’ OR
I chose “Microsoft” as vendor and then went down the list of “business Card” Product ID’s until I found 2×3.5″ on 8.5×11″ (This is annoying because you must enter each one to see what the sizes are - but this is the LAST business card entry in my list)
Then Click -> ‘New Label’ and I changed my Vertical and Horizontal pitches and Top and Side Margins according to my paper margins included with my pack (or get them online)
Then OK and OK again and at the main Envelopes and Labels screen hit ‘New Document’ and you should see a blank Template for your cards…
For everyone using Avery 8731 - It is in the list where I chose ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Business Cards’ Just choose Avery and your template number and it should be even easier then mine.
FYI I did install an Avery Wizard on 2007 and while it threw an error code on start up it actually worked
thank you sooooooooooo much
god bless u……..
ure the best
So, you are saying that I open this template with 10 cards, and then I have to change EACH and EVERY CARD MYSELF???
I can’t make one card and then have the software replicate it over the entire page????
Who the heck thought up that? Or is this a way to make me buy Publisher?
Way to go, Bill Gates.
I believe those technical computer wizards call it copy and paste my friend
morgana
Save your file as a PDF which your printer will be able to use as long as they have adobe acrobat(most do).
To save it as pdf just download Cute pdf printer
to use cute pdf just go into the print option in the munu bar and select print and choose cute pdf printer
you can choose the location you want to save your PDF to
Very helpful and frankly the program and template were easy to use. I modified the whole thing, design logo and all in a few minutes. I just cut and pasted after I got the layout and design correct. That was not too difficult.
I was pretty frustrated and upset for about twenty minutes due to the pre-set templates graciously offered via Microsoft Office Online, then I stumbled upon Avery’s website. I don’t know if I’m allowed to drop a link in the comments section here so just add a “.com” after “avery” and you should be on the right track. Search for blank templates and you should be in business. I downloaded both of them and now have the ability to use my own images, etc. etc. etc.
How to design a business card using word?
I tried to do what was described by Matt, but to no avail… anyone have a simple way to do other than spending money with vista prints?
Hi just to let you all know that after spending hours on designing a business card and trying to figure out how to get it printed, so that I didn’t have to keep copying and pasting it to each individual card, I finally won!!!
I read what everyone was saying on this website and following Matt’s instructions I finally got thru it.
You first have to open microsoft office and then click on the mailings tab at the top
then click on labels and new documents, then you need to design your card, use the insert button to get your pictures or if you want text click on that tab, you’ll just have to play with it to see what you want. once you are done with it hilite your design right click, copy, then click on mailings, labels options, where it says label venders, find your paper and click on that I used Avery US letter and card stock 8371 hit ok and then you should be able to print it, hopefully I didn’t leave out any steps, I know some of you know all this already, but I didn’t so that is why I typed it out. hopefully it helps! Good Luck!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP,HAVING COMPUTER AND KNOWING IT POWER IS GREAT.
I followed Alicias instructions and was quite pleased with my biz card
hi..im anna from philippines..am so glad to find your website..it help me a lot as in alot on my business right now..ive just started making business cards and invitations ..thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and good luck to you and god bless hope to hear from you…
Thank you Alisa!!! Worked like a charm!
I just want to ask you how do you make an business card see we is making a business career and by the way im in 8th grade and im wondering how do you make one because i would like to make a business card.
how do i change the color of the green columns?
HOW can this be done using Vista-Blank Business cards that is, with a logo inserted?
This tutorial is not meant to work with the Vista templates. I mention Vista business cards, because after adding up the cost of business card paper and ink plus the time it takes to do them yourself, I found it cheaper to just order through Vista.
why don’t you just open up Power Point, import a picture, and add text? Thats how i did my custom cards.
Sure, you can do that to. I never said this was the only way to do it.
Help! When I print it comes out with the business cards slightly up and to the left of where they should be on my paper. Any suggestions?
I am dying to print Business cards, Ink are expensive plus I can print myself. My program is 2004! I can’t find any.
Any idea? so I can make business card soon.
Jared:
When you use Labels, and click a product number like Avery XXXX, it immediately formats the entire document specifically to ensure that it will print perfectly.
First, check you have inserted the paper the correct way into the printer tray - this is a really common mistake. The discard margins might look like they are exactly the same size, but if you inspect it closer, you will usually find that there is a few millimetres difference between the left and right margin areas, and top and bottom margin areas. Put it in the tray the wrong way, and there causes the slight misplacement.
Next, check the packaging of the pre-perforated business card paper that you purchase. Most companies, well here in Australia at least, instruct you to match up to one of the Avery product setup - the last packet I purchased stated it was the equivalent of Avery L7414 .
To the person earlier who wanted to design it once and then have all the other labels automatically carry over to all the spare labels - Use the UPDATE button once you have finished. It will do precisely what you just described!
You can insert Autoshapes and Clip Art and Pictures etc - but make sure they do not hang out of the table or the design will not carry down properly.
(PS, I am a computer trainer at a local community college, and have students asking these same questions ALL the time.)
PS, you DON’T have to copy and paste the design - use the UPDATE LABELS button in MAILINGS
thanks a ton really i am only 11 but its for school
THIS IS A GOOD WEBSITE…..
Thanks to all of you! I really learned something useful today!
Still hae one problem: my biz card has a back-side design as well. How can i print it ?
thanks
that wasnt that good but you can do better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!