Christmas is in full swing, and we stay open longer to accommodate busy customers with their professional headshots, family, child, senior portraits, and real estate photos. Christmas cards are popular, and since we already have made the images, it's just a matter of some design work. In this recent period, we had to print the addresses from an excel database. I'm not ignorant of Excel, but since I spend very little time with that program, I tend to be slow and very careful. In years past, my clients would hand address the envelopes or print the address on pressure-sensitive labels and then apply them one at a time to the envelopes, a very labor-intensive endeavor. This year they were willing to pay me to use the addresses on the envelopes. My assistant designed the card, which she had done many times for this family. As soon as the final approval came through, I discovered that I should have used a different design program that had the printed envelopes included with the cards. I talked to my lab and found a workaround to get the printed envelopes. The lab wanted a CSV file, an old Excel version, so there is always a conversion procedure that requires several attempts on my part. However, this allowed my client to move quickly through the postal requirements to get the cards mailed. Since this client had been in statewide politics, his mailing list, which included national political leaders, was very long.
