Insert a label into an Office document

If you are working with a docuement that is saved to a library on a SharePoint site where a policy requiring the insertion of a label is in effect as part of an information management policy, you may need to insert a label into your Office file when you save or print it.

Important: Labels have been discontinued in SharePoint 2013 and later versions. For more information, see Discontinued features and modified functionality in Microsoft SharePoint 2013.

In this article

Overview

Insert a label manually

Insert a label when you save or print

Overview

A label provides a way for your organization to include a document's properties (or metadata about the document) in the document itself. For example, a law firm may require that notes from meetings with clients be labeled as covered by attorney-client privilege.

You cannot insert a label in a document until the site administrator or list manager configures the appropriate policy for the library or list. To learn more about defining an information management policy, see the article Create an information management policy for a site collection. If such a policy exists, the Label command appears on the Insert tab so that you can insert labels.

Any document that already exists in the list or library when the policy is established is not assigned a label (which therefore can't be inserted) until the document is checked out and checked back in. Documents that are uploaded to a list or library with a label policy already in effect are automatically assigned labels that can be inserted immediately.

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Insert a label manually

Depending upon how a label policy is configured, you can be required to insert labels into documents that reside in libraries on an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site.

Note: You cannot change the formatting of a label, such as font or text size. The formatting is determined by the site administrator or list manager when he or she creates the label policy.

1. If the library is not already open, click its name on the Quick Launch.

   If the name of your library does not appear on the Quick Launch, click View All Site Content, and then click the name of your library.

2. Point to the document that you want, click the arrow that appears, and then click Edit in Microsoft Office program name — for example, Edit in Microsoft Office Word.

3. Place your cursor in the location in the document where you want to insert the label.

4. On the Insert tab, in the Barcode group, click Label.

   

   Note: The Label command appears on the Insert tab only if a label policy is in effect for a server document.

5. Click Save to save your changes.

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Insert a label when you save or print

A library on an SharePoint site can have a label policy that requires you to insert a label when you save or print a document.

If the document does not already contain a label when you save or print, you are prompted to insert one. If you click Yes when prompted, the label is inserted in a default location.

• If the file is read-only, the label is inserted at the cursor's current location.

• If the file is in Edit mode, the label is inserted in a default location.

  • In Word    The label is inserted in the header of the first page of the document.

  • In Excel    The label is inserted in the first cell on the first worksheet in the workbook.

  • In PowerPoint    The label is inserted in the center of the first slide in the presentation.

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