Creating Wall Calendars from Scratch

hark

hark

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I am working on a fund raising project for church and would like to create a wall calendar. Initially I was going to use Costco, but after reading some of their reviews, the main photos are @ 6x9 inches after factoring in the templates. They don't appear to offer calendars without templates. The nice thing is they allow up to 10 dates per month to be personalized with text and/or photos.

So someone from my church put me in touch with a printer that works with a lot of non-profit organizations. The cost, the paper's weight and quality sound impressive. It would allow me to set up everything myself and not be limited to 10 dates per month for personalizing. I'm thinking Excel might be a good program to create the monthly charts (days of the week, dates, etc). Has anyone ever used Excel to create a wall calendar? This one would be 11x17 inches when opened.

I haven't ever tackled this type of project before although I had a class on Excel once. I believe the instructor offers private help, and if I use Excel, I can reach out to her for guidance. Any suggestions or comments?
 
hark

hark

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I looked at many of the name brand companies, but because this is a non-profit organization, I can get better pricing using printers that work with non-profits. I want to add specific religious holidays in the dates so customizing with text is a nice addition. Many of the big name companies don't offer that or allowing photos on specific dates.

I'm hoping people who have created their own templates can let me know what software they've used. I have Excel and took a class on it--although I need to refresh my memory on how to use it. ;)
 
S

STM

Senior Member
I second VistaPrint, and they are cheaper than Costco. They have been doing my business cards, not only photography but other sources for almost 8 years. Nothing but first class products and they are very reasonable.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
hark said:
I am working on a fund raising project for church and would like to create a wall calendar. Initially I was going to use Costco, but after reading some of their reviews, the main photos are @ 6x9 inches after factoring in the templates. They don't appear to offer calendars without templates. The nice thing is they allow up to 10 dates per month to be personalized with text and/or photos.

So someone from my church put me in touch with a printer that works with a lot of non-profit organizations. The cost, the paper's weight and quality sound impressive. It would allow me to set up everything myself and not be limited to 10 dates per month for personalizing. I'm thinking Excel might be a good program to create the monthly charts (days of the week, dates, etc). Has anyone ever used Excel to create a wall calendar? This one would be 11x17 inches when opened.

I haven't ever tackled this type of project before although I had a class on Excel once. I believe the instructor offers private help, and if I use Excel, I can reach out to her for guidance. Any suggestions or comments?
Click to expand...
The current version of Excel comes with almost fifty calendar templates right off the bat, and there are probably thousands of free calendar templates available on-line for it. The problem methinks you're going to run into is wanting something 11 x 17". Your printer might be able to resize the final product for you, though; I don't know.

Do you have access to Microsoft Publisher? That might be the way to go.

Edit: I just checked and Publisher will let you work in 11" x 17" natively and it has built-in calendar templates. The nice thing about MS Pub' is that it's stupid simple to work with; here's an example, formatted to 17" wide by 11" high, using a blank document and a drop-in calendar template (the template is moveable, resizable, etc.). Then I dropped in some other stuff (a photo, some word-art, text box, clip art). Total time invested: about thirty seconds (no critiques, please! (lol)). MS Pub' will even let you save your final product in .JPG or .PDF format.

If I can be of any further help just let me know, but I really think MS Publisher would be your best option.
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Publication1.jpg
 
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hark

hark

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Horoscope Fish said:
The current version of Excel comes with almost fifty calendar templates right off the bat, and there are probably thousands of free calendar templates available on-line for it. The problem methinks you're going to run into is wanting something 11 x 17". Your printer might be able to resize the final product for you, though; I don't know.

Do you have access to Microsoft Publisher? That might be the way to go.

Edit: I just checked and Publisher will let you work in 11" x 17" natively and it has built-in calendar templates. The nice thing about MS Pub' is that it's stupid simple to work with; here's an example, formatted to 17" wide by 11" high, using one of the templates (the template is moveable, resizable, etc.); total time invested: about ten seconds. If I can be of any further help, just let me know but I really think this would be your best option.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this, Paul! I have both 2010 Excel and 2010 Publisher but have only taken a class in using Excel (never used it once the class was over). Wasn't even aware Excel offers templates and have never used Publisher in all these years of having it. My local school district offers adult education classes with a variety of topics. I took Word, Excel, and Power Point many years ago although the only one I still use is Word. Once in a while they offer Publisher, but unfortunately none of the computer classes were offered this past spring. The woman who taught Excel said she offered private lessons so I can check to see if she is still available.

To those who suggested Vista Print, it isn't even on my radar. For 100 calendars, the price comes out to be $12.99 each. Costco is $8.99. The printer who works with non-profits comes in below Costco's price. :encouragement:

So what is full color with bleed? Does that allow printing to the edges?
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
hark said:
So what is full color with bleed? Does that allow printing to the edges?
Click to expand...
Since it's difficult to print exactly to the edge of a sheet of paper or card-stock a slightly larger area than what's needed is printed, then it's trimmed to the finished size as the final step. The "bleed" is the section that will be cut off to achieve the final, correct size. If it matters a typical bleed is about 1/8" or thereabouts.

Full Color means, well... Full color, as in full spectrum.
 
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cwgrizz

cwgrizz

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I think I will second Paul's MS Publisher suggestion. I haven't used it for calendars, but I have used it for pamphlets and other things. It is very user friendly. Basically text/image blocks that can be resized, moved around, etc. It has templates too. You can start with a template and then modify it to your liking. Excel would work also with templates, but Publisher, IMHO, would be easier for this project.
 
hark

hark

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Thanks Paul and Walt. I will get in contact with the woman who taught Excel and Publisher to see if she can teach me how to set up the monthly calendar charts using one of these programs. Fortunately she was an excellent teacher who really knew how to teach--and she was one of the support staff at the elementary school level to teach the kids. I just hope she is still teaching!

On a side note, the adult community classes that are taught spring and fall contain some very useful topics. In addition to these computer classes (as well as an intro to computers and learning to sell on ebay), they offer exercise (yoga, tai chi), a darkroom class to develop and print 35mm film (took that class 3x), wine tasting at a local grocery store, home maintenance topics, and others. One class which Paul can relate to is....glass blowing!

I wish they would offer the class on creating stained glass pieces again--I have a couple pieces of stained glass items that need to be repaired, and it would be fascinating if I could fix them myself.

Thanks again for your help! :encouragement:
 
hark

hark

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I've been working on this wall calendar all year. I used a Word template to set it up since Word is the only program I have that the printer uses. Just the other day when adding individual photos into the dates, the images didn't insert the way I thought they would. Here I expected I could use the wrap text option to hide part of each photo behind the walls of the cells. Doesn't work that way. :( So I sized the photos to fit exactly within each cell.

Imagine my surprise to see the photos moving up/down or sideways when zooming in or out on the document. I set them up when viewing at 100% and they looked great, but when printing a page, the photos move 1/16" from where they were positioned. And they didn't all move in the same direction. *sigh* Don't know why and even appealed to the lady who taught me how to set it up in Word, but she is stymied just as much as I am.

So now I am scrambling to create an entirely new calendar using Photoshop. Yes, that's right. Last night I found this tutorial on how to import a Google calendar PDF template and go from there. It's a pain to make this from scratch again, but in case anyone else considers making a wall calendar, I just wanted to share this option.

I am adding all the holidays and text myself and opted not to import the calendar with the holidays already on it. That way all my text will match. I can save each month as a jpeg and copy into a Word document.

 
cwgrizz

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Good luck on it, Cindy. It is crazy and frustrating when you think you have it and software decides otherwise. Aargh.
 
Marcel

Marcel

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hark said:
I've been working on this wall calendar all year. I used a Word template to set it up since Word is the only program I have that the printer uses. Just the other day when adding individual photos into the dates, the images didn't insert the way I thought they would. Here I expected I could use the wrap text option to hide part of each photo behind the walls of the cells. Doesn't work that way. :( So I sized the photos to fit exactly within each cell.

Imagine my surprise to see the photos moving up/down or sideways when zooming in or out on the document. I set them up when viewing at 100% and they looked great, but when printing a page, the photos move 1/16" from where they were positioned. And they didn't all move in the same direction. *sigh* Don't know why and even appealed to the lady who taught me how to set it up in Word, but she is stymied just as much as I am.

So now I am scrambling to create an entirely new calendar using Photoshop. Yes, that's right. Last night I found this tutorial on how to import a Google calendar PDF template and go from there. It's a pain to make this from scratch again, but in case anyone else considers making a wall calendar, I just wanted to share this option.

I am adding all the holidays and text myself and opted not to import the calendar with the holidays already on it. That way all my text will match. I can save each month as a jpeg and copy into a Word document.

Click to expand...
Just a question Cindy, why would you want to go and copy to a word document instead of saving each month as a jpeg ready for printing? Some printers prefer to work with pdf files, so better decide who will be printing it before giving you too much trouble going in a word document.
 
hark

hark

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Marcel said:
Just a question Cindy, why would you want to go and copy to a word document instead of saving each month as a jpeg ready for printing? Some printers prefer to work with pdf files, so better decide who will be printing it before giving you too much trouble going in a word document.
Click to expand...

They sent me a list of programs they print from. I asked about a PDF but it isn't an option. They requested the size of 17"x11" which includes both the large photo as well as the monthly chart. Word is the only program I have from that list. Someone else from my church uses this printer because they print for non-profit organizations. They are offering a really good price which comes in less than if I were to use Costco's calendar templates. Plus I can add as many photos and colored text that I want. Costco only offered up to 10 days per month for customized photos or text.
 
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