Ways to make name badges
Avery 5395 is a sheet of eight peel-off name-badge stickers, each 2⅓″ × 3⅜″, on a US Letter page. "5395" is just Avery's part number; the identical badge also sells as 5895, 8395, and 45395, and store-brand boxes marked "compatible with 5395" use the same layout. You print the sheet, peel each badge, and stick it on or drop it into a clip-on holder.
For a handful of guests, a marker and a pack of blank "Hello, my name is" stickers beat any printer and look fine at a casual party. That stops being true the moment you want them legible, matching, and formal, or once there are thirty of them.
To print them you have a few routes. A Word or Google Docs mail merge onto an Avery template works, but it takes setup and the layout re-flows differently on each machine, so badges slide off their labels. Avery's own Design & Print site is capable but pushes an account and design upsells. Buying pre-printed badges only pays off when the same few names repeat, like booth staff. Our Name Badge Maker is the fast path for a one-off list: paste the names, get a PDF already laid out for the 5395 grid, free and without a signup. It isn't a label designer, though, so if you need logos placed just so or a nonstandard size, a real design tool wins.
Using the free Name Badge Maker
In the box near the top labeled "Names (one per line)," put one name on each line; a preview on the right updates as you type. There's an optional "Line under the name" for a title or company, and an optional logo. Click the big purple "Generate … Badges (PDF)" button and it saves a PDF laid out eight to a sheet.
Printing so it lands on the labels
The one thing that decides whether the names sit on the stickers instead of the gaps is printing at full size. Run a plain-paper test before you spend a real sheet; it costs nothing and also shows you which way up the labels have to go in the tray.
- Open the PDF and choose Print.
Double-click the downloaded file, then choose Print (in the File menu, or Ctrl+P on Windows, Cmd+P on a Mac). A window opens with your printer and its settings. That window is the print dialog, where the next steps happen. - Set the size to 100%, not "Fit."
Printers shrink pages a little by default, and if that happens here the names print between the labels instead of on them. Find the setting called Scale (some printers call it Size or Page Scaling) and set it to 100% or "Actual size," and make sure any "Fit to page" option is turned off. - Work out which way your printer prints.
A label sheet has stickers on one side only, and that side has to face the ink. Draw a big X on one side of a plain sheet, note whether the X faces up or down going into the tray, and print any page. Whichever side the ink landed on is the side that prints, so the labels go in sticker-side facing that way. - Test one plain sheet against a blank label sheet.
Set the page range in the print dialog to just 1, print that page on plain paper, and hold it over an unused label sheet up to a window. Each name should sit inside a sticker rectangle with an even border. - Load the labels the same way up, and print.
Put the label sheet in sticker-side facing the way your X test showed, set the page range back to All, and print the rest.
Where the size setting is, by program
In Chrome or Edge, the print window has a "More settings" link; click it and set Scale to 100 (or Default). On a Mac, Preview and Acrobat call it "Actual size." Some printer windows word it as "Page scaling: None." They all mean full size, no shrinking. You never want the one called Fit.
If the test doesn't line up
If the names drift further off the lower they go down the sheet, scaling is still on somewhere, so recheck the size setting. If instead every name is off by the same small amount in the same direction, that's ordinary printer drift, and the tool can correct it: click the small "Print calibration" heading to open it, and two boxes appear, "Nudge right (in)" and "Nudge down (in)." Measure how far the test missed by, type that distance in inches into the matching box, make the sheet again, and retest on plain paper. If the names come out tilted rather than shifted, the paper is feeding in crooked, which has its own troubleshooting guide.
No label sheets? Plain paper works
You don't need sticker sheets at all. Turn on the "Show faint cut guides" checkbox on the tool page, print on plain paper or cardstock, and cut along the faint lines. Slid into a clip-on holder or a lanyard sleeve, no one can tell it wasn't a sticker, and cardstock holds up better than copy paper through a day of being worn.