Removing Return Addresses

In other issues of WordTips you learn how to insert a graphic in a return address for creating envelopes or for creating labels. It seems that learning how to remove those special return addresses has resulted in the subject for another tip—this tip.

How you go about removing a return address that contains a graphic depends exactly on how it was created in the first place. There are a couple of things to try, each of which may result in the offending graphic being removed. The first thing to try is to simply try to delete the return address. You do this by following these steps:

1. Choose Envelopes and Labels from the Tools menu. This displays the Envelopes and Labels dialog box.
2. Make sure the Envelopes tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Envelopes tab of the Envelopes and Labels dialog box.

3. Click in the Return Address area and delete everything there. For good measure, replace the contents with a single space.
4. Print your envelopes as normal. The return address should be gone.

If you simply want to remove the return address temporarily, you could click on the Omit check box in step 3. The contents of the return address are retained, but it should not print.

If this doesn't work, take a look in the options area for the return address stored there. You can get to it and get rid of it by following these steps:

1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. This displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the User Information tab is selected. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The User Information tab of the Options dialog box.

3. Click in the Return Address area and delete everything there.
4. Click on OK to close the Options dialog box.
5. Try to print your envelopes. The return address should not show up in the Envelopes and Labels dialog box.

Finally, there is one other place to look if you still cannot get rid of the return address. Word allows you to define a special AutoText entry that prints as part of your return address. This entry normally has the name EnvelopeExtra1. To get rid of it, follow these steps:

1. Choose AutoText from the Edit menu. This displays the AutoText dialog box.
2. Scroll through the list of AutoText entries, looking for items such as EnvelopeExtra1 or EnvelopeExtra2. If you find one, select it.
3. Click on the Delete button.
4. Look for any other similarly named AutoText entries, repeating steps 2 and 3 as needed.
5. Click on the Close button.
6. Try to print your envelopes. The return address should not show up in the Envelopes and Labels dialog box.

For more information on the special EnvelopeExtra1 AutoText entry, see this page:

http://www.gmayor.com/Alternative_Return_Addresses.htm

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1100) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Removing Return Addresses.