Customising Calender For Refillable Notebook

[holgalee]

Has anyone tried printing a monthly calender for their notebook? I have a Traveller's Notebook (passport sized) and I don't really like the stock monthly calender as the space is too small and there's a margin on the right that I don't need.

 

Because it's not an international size, I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot of time in Photoshop using trial and error to print them back to back, getting the size and alignment right.

[egretsrus]

Try D.I.Y. Planner, a great website with many templates for datebook pages, journal pages, diaries, etc. All free.

Good luck!

[drifting]

Try D.I.Y. Planner, a great website with many templates for datebook pages, journal pages, diaries, etc. All free.

Good luck!

 

+1

 

Lots of great templates, and the Dynamic Template app is pretty cool if you don't see exactly what you want made up already.

 

Ryan.

[inkpenguin]

I use iCal on my Mac, then change the printer set up or print to PDF and then tweak the printer to print it such that I can punch the calendar and insert it into my loose leaf binder.

 

With a laser printer, you can change the magnification of the output so that you reduce it and then cut and punch the final output so that you can insert it into your notebook.

[wallylynn]

If you're going "all out" to design your own calendar, I suggest a DTP (desktop publishing) application. Photoshop is for pixel images. The DTP will be accurate to page sizes and use layout of full items (letters, words, lines, etc.) to allow easy editing. Change the paper size and your 1pt line will stay 1pt vs scaling in photoshop.

 

At the very least, use Openoffice Draw like the DIY planner suggested earlier. That way you can get accurate centering for duplex printing (printer tolerance excepted). I also suggest printing/exporting to PDF and then using Adobe Reader to do the printing for consistency.

 

I used http://scribus.net when I designed a journal refill for myself. It took me just an hour to learn and layout. "Multiple duplicate" is your friend. Then the rest of the day tweaking line widths and stuff.

[johniem]

I use my word processor (Open Office Writer) do design and print my planner/journal pages. Doing your own allows the option/luxury of changing the layout when yor needs change.

[holgalee]

Egretsrus & Drifting, I've checked out DIY planner and it looks very impressive. Unfortunately, I'm trying to create a monthly calender that will take up two pages--at the Midori Traveler's passport size--but without the left and right margins so that the cells are larger. I don't seem to see such an option, but I need to poke around DIY planner some more.

 

Wallylyn, I may just install a trial version of InDesign or Scribus and see how it goes. If there are other ideas, please keep them coming.

 

Johniem, Open Office Writer looks good, but I already have MS Word at home. How do they compare when it comes to creating calenders?

[holgalee]

My bad. I just tried to photoshop the PDFs by reducing the size of the margins, and that seems to work.