Fixing label print alignment

Misaligned labels almost always come down to one of two separate numbers: the page margin, and the pitch between labels. Telling them apart tells you which one to change.

Margin and pitch are independent

The margin is the distance from the edge of the page to the first label. The pitch is the distance from one label's position to the next. A sheet can have the right margin and the wrong pitch, or the reverse — adjusting the wrong one just moves the problem rather than fixing it. In the label maker, margin and gap are separate controls for exactly this reason.

Progressive drift vs a uniform offset

Lay a ruler across a misprinted sheet and check two things: is the very first label already off, by roughly the same amount as the last one — a uniform offset — or does the error grow row by row, with the first label fine and the last one clearly wrong — progressive drift?

Uniform offset: every label is shifted the same way. Usually the printer's own unprintable margin, or the sheet feeding in slightly crooked. Adjust the page margin, or reseat the paper square in the tray.
Progressive drift: the error compounds down the sheet. The pitch (label size plus gap) used to generate the PDF doesn't match the physical pitch of your stock. Measure two adjacent labels on the blank stock with a ruler or calipers, and correct the gap value to match.

Proof at 100%

Before committing a full sheet, print one page at 100% scale — never "fit to page" or "shrink oversized pages", both of which rescale the whole layout by an amount that depends on the printer, not the file. Measure a single label against the width and height shown in the label maker's panel. If they match, the file is correct and any remaining drift is in the printer or the stock; if they don't, the print dialog is still scaling and needs to be set back to actual size.

Still not right? Work through these

Everything sits a little low and to the right. That is a uniform offset. Measure the gap from the sheet edge to the first printed label, subtract the intended margin, and enter the difference as the calibration offset. A negative offset is perfectly normal and is accepted as long as the labels still land inside the paper.
Row one is fine, row eight is half a label out. That is pitch, not margin. Measure from the top edge of one label to the top edge of the next — that distance is height plus gap — and correct the gap so the two agree.
Everything is slightly too small. The print dialog is still scaling. Turn off "fit to page" and print at 100%.
Only the first sheet is right. The second sheet was fed from a different tray, or the stock was loaded the other way round. Feed both from the same tray in the same orientation.
The code prints but will not scan. That is size or contrast, not alignment — check the printed module size with the print resolution calculator below.

Printing labels from a CSV file · Print resolution calculator · Label maker

Label alignment — common questions

Every label is off by the same amount. What does that mean?

A uniform offset — the whole grid shifted the same distance in the same direction — is almost always the printer's own margin or the sheet feeding slightly askew. Fix it by adjusting the page margin in the label maker or reseating the paper, not by changing the pitch.

The first label is fine but they get worse down the sheet. Why?

That's progressive drift: the gap between labels (the pitch) in the file doesn't quite match the physical pitch of the sheet, so a small error compounds row after row. It needs the pitch or gap value corrected, not the starting margin.

My PDF viewer's print dialog has a 'fit to page' option — should I use it?

No. Fit-to-page rescales the whole layout to the printer's printable area, which changes every measurement on the sheet by a different amount depending on the printer. Print at 100% (sometimes labelled 'actual size') and check one physical label against the numbers shown in the label maker before printing the rest.