Posting items made easier

LA POSTE'S service for printing stamps at home has been improved.

On www.montimbreenligne.laposte.fr you can print stamps on to envelopes or on to sheets of stickers from a stationer’s (it is also possible to print on paper, cut out and stick on, though this is not officially recommend).

New features include saving your most commonly used addresses for printing and an option of printing your sender’s address on the back.

It is now also possible to print stamps for small objects such as DVDs or books (up to a kilo and no more than 2cm thick in France, with the Mini Max tariff, or up to 2kg for sending abroad with no size limits under the “small packages” rate).

The site will now also check you have spelled and presented addresses properly.

Otherwise, when addressing letters by hand, it is recommended to: use six lines maximum, use no punctuation after a street number and follow the post code by the commune name in capitals. Do not add department or region.

If sending abroad, the last line is the country, in capitals, in French.