A guide to printing holiday cards

ORLANDO — Technology might have killed the art of letter writing, but it has improved another time-honored form of communication: holiday cards.

Thanks to digital cameras, computers and online photo-sharing sites, it's easier than ever to create custom holiday cards with your photos without the need to get out the glue stick or leave the house.

The methods described listed assume that you are able to transfer photos from your digital camera to your computer. If you need help with that, consult your camera's owner's manual. If you don't have a computer or digital camera, you can bring a hard copy of a photo to stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, CVS and Walgreens and use a kiosk to design holiday cards.

There are dozens of online photo services such as Snapfish.com, Shutterfly.com, Flickr.com or KodakGallery.com that allow you to upload a photo and use it to design a holiday card. If you haven't declared allegiance to a photo-sharing service yet, here are some tips:

--Mac users: If you already store photos in iPhoto, you can easily design and purchase holiday cards right inside the iPhoto interface. Although the prices are a little more expensive than other services, you save time by not having to upload photos, and it's faster than using a Web-based photo site. To use it, simply highlight the photo you want to use and click on "Card." You can then choose a template, which is super easy because iPhoto automatically shows you how your photo will look in different templates.

Once you've added your title, greeting and finished designing your card, you can use your one-click Apple ID (the same one you use to buy songs on iTunes), to purchase the cards. All of the cards you design are saved as "Projects" in iPhoto, so you can modify them whenever you want and even save them as PDFs.

Apple often runs offers of 20 percent off all iPhoto printing services, so you may want to keep an eye out for that.

--Pricing and availability: If price is a concern, shop around through the different services to see who is offering the best deals. For instance, Shutterfly has a deal where you get 25 holiday cards free when you buy 50. At KodakGallery.com, you can save 25 percent on cards when you spend $20 or 35 percent when you spend $60.

--If you procrastinate, you may want to go with a photo service that will let you design cards online and then pick them up a retail location.

--Another way to save money is to create postcards with your photos, which are generally cheaper and don't require an envelope.

--Do it yourself: If you have a photo printer, you could print out cards yourself, although I wouldn't recommend it. Using an online service or in-store kiosks is generally a better option.

Snapfish allows you to have your return address preprinted on the greeting card envelopes. Most of the services will also allow you to mail a card directly to someone, but then you won't be able to add a handwritten message first.

You can use your computer and printer to print addresses on envelopes or on labels.

To print addresses directly on an envelope using Microsoft Word, look for "Envelopes and Labels," which is under "Letters and Mailings" in the Tools menu. You'll have to adjust the "Options" to match the size of the envelope you are using, and if you haven't done this before, it will take some trial and error.

Printing labels is easier because you only need to choose the brand and model number of the sheet of labels you purchased when you are in Options. If you already have the names and addresses saved on your computer, you can copy and paste the text into the envelope or label field and if you store addresses in Microsoft Outlook, you can import them from your contacts.

If you have a lot of holiday cards to send, teach yourself about "Mail Merge" by reading up on it at office.microsoft.com or if you are on a Mac, microsoft.com/mac.