Labels Not Lining Up? How to Fix Printer Alignment

When text prints across the edge of the labels, the cause is almost always one of four things. Work through them in this order.

1. The PDF was scaled

If the print dialog says Fit to page, Shrink oversized pages or a percentage other than 100%, the whole sheet is scaled by a few percent. Labels at the top look fine and the error grows towards the bottom.

Fix: choose Actual size or 100%. See how to print a PDF at actual size.

2. The paper size doesn’t match

Printing an A4 layout on Letter paper (or the other way round) shifts and crops the labels. Check that the sheet you picked in LabelSheet matches the box — US sheets (Avery® 5160 etc.) are Letter, European and Japanese sheets are A4 — and that the printer is set to the same size.

3. The wrong template

Many sheets look similar but have different margins. Compare the product number on the package with the one selected, or identify your sheet by measuring it.

4. The printer has a small offset

Most printers place the image within ±1 mm — some feed 1–2 mm off. This is the same on every page, so you can correct it once.

1. In LabelSheet open Print and click Test page.
2. Print it at 100% on plain paper.
3. Check the 100 mm ruler in the middle with a real ruler. If it isn’t 100 mm, the printer is still scaling — go back to step 1.
4. Put the test page on top of a label sheet and hold both against a window. Measure how far the outlines are from the real labels.
5. Enter the shift under Printer alignment: Move right (negative = left) and Move down (negative = up), in millimetres.

Your alignment is saved in the browser and applied to every PDF. Print the test page again to confirm.

Labels are fine at the top but drift towards the bottom

That’s scaling. If you already print at 100%, set Scale to the measured value: if the 100 mm line measures 99.2 mm, enter 100.8%.

More tips

• Feed one sheet at a time and push the paper guides against the stack gently — skewed feeding causes diagonal drift.
• Use the manual/rear feed on printers that have one; label sheets bend less.
• Design with a margin: keep important text 1.5–2 mm inside the label edge. Frames and full-colour backgrounds show every shift — a white edge hides it.