Why row 1 lines up while row 10 misses the sticker
An Avery 5160 or 8160 sheet packs ten 1-inch rows vertically onto an 11-inch US Letter page, leaving a 0.5-inch margin at the top and bottom. When Chrome, Preview, or Adobe Acrobat defaults to 'Fit to Printable Area', it shrinks the entire page to roughly 96.5%.
At row 1, a 3.5% shrink shifts the barcode by less than half a millimeter. By row 10 (254 mm down the sheet), that cumulative shrinkage pulls the barcode nearly 9 mm upward—straight across the die-cut gap.
| Symptom on plain paper | Root cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Row 1 is fine; row 10 is 6–9 mm high | Printer scaled page to ~96% | Set Scale to 100% / Actual Size |
| Every row is 2 mm low by the same amount | Paper tray top-margin offset | Feed from bypass tray, face-up |
| Columns drift left to right | A4 paper selected instead of US Letter | Set Paper Size to US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) |
Avery 5160 vs. Avery 8160: identical layout, different coating
Avery 5160, 8160, 8460, 18160, and 48860 all share the exact same physical grid on 8.5 × 11 in paper: 3 columns across, 10 rows down, 2.625 × 1 in cells, and a 0.125 in horizontal gutter between columns.
The box number only indicates the adhesive and paper coating: 5160 is optimized for laser toner fusers, while 8160 is coated for fast-drying inkjet ink so barcode bars do not bleed into the white spaces.
The 30-second plain-paper window check
Before loading expensive label stock, print our free 1-page Alignment Test PDF on regular copy paper. Hold the plain page behind a blank Avery sheet against a window or ceiling light:
- Every red box should sit squarely inside the die-cut rectangle of the sticker.
- Measure the scale bar in the bottom margin with a ruler—it must read 100 mm. If it measures 96 mm, your print dialog is still scaling the PDF.
Frequently asked questions
Where can I download the free Avery 5160 alignment test PDF?
You can download the 30-up Alignment Test PDF, the blank hairline PDF, and the fixed-layout Word .docx directly on our Avery 5160 Template page without creating an account.
Why do standard Word tables shift when a product title wraps to two lines?
By default, Word sets table rows to 'At least' height. One long product name expands that row and pushes every row below it off its sticker. Our downloadable .docx locks row height to 'Exact' (1440 twips = 1.00 in) so cells never expand.