After selecting the desired calendar and, if necessary, the size, the "Calendar design start page" appears, where you can select creative calendars or design calendars as a design method. To make it easier to get started, this page precedes the actual calendar design selection. You can stop this page from being displayed here, and can also deactivate and reactivate it in Settings.
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There is a key technical difference between 'Creative calendars" and "Design calendars". The former is a lot more flexible in terms of editability, while the latter is largely pre-formatted. |
This dialogue helps you during the pre-selection of the available calendar layouts or designs. To do this, there is a preview window. Different groups of settings help you to find the right template for your calendar using selection options. An "Info" panel gives you additional information on the individual settings groups.
The available calendars are displayed in the preview window. The selection options chosen below change the selection and number of displayed calendars. In the top right of the preview window, you can switch the display between table and storyboard and in the bottom right with the magnifying glass icons, you can change the number of rows for the thumbnails. If there is not sufficient space in the preview window for all displayed calendars, you can move the thumbnails left and right using the arrows. Double-clicking on the thumbnail opens the calendar in Editor, where you can make further design adjustments, and "Use selection" button opens the calendars already highlighted.
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Ensure that your photos are arranged at full-screen or at a suitable scale. Icons on the thumbnails show whether the calendar supports several colours (multicolour) and/or individual entries |
To activate and deactivate the creative and design calendars.
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Creative and Design: advantages and disadvantages: With a design calendar, a lot is pre-defined and there are very limited design options, but it is very simple to create an aesthetically attractive calendar.With a creative calendar, you can customise the page layouts, but more time and effort is required.Therefore, if you wish to design a calendar yourself, choose "Creative",but if you want to save time and effort, choose "Design". |
This is a short-list of the available calendar styles. Please note the illustration.
The calendar style options are:
Here, you can set details including the month and year in which your calendar should begin. The region is needed in order to display bank holidays and school holidays. Tick the check box before "Bank holidays", if the bank holidays should be removed from the calendar. If there is sufficient space, the name of the bank holiday will be displayed. Tick the check box before "Own entries", if your own entries should be shown in the calendar.
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You can choose "Own entries" when setting the calendar properties. For example, you can enter birthdays or other important dates, if appropriate with a photo. |
From a small selection of basic colours, you can pre-select one for the thumbnails that will, if possible, also be moved into the Editor for the calendar. With many of the design calendars, you can choose from 60 colour combinations in the Editor and for creative calendars, from hundreds of backgrounds; you can also choose from lots of different colour schemes for the calendar styles.
Clicking this button will take you to an Internet page, where you can download additional design calendars.
The choice of calendars in the preview window depends on which settings are active. Several calendar types and calendar styles may be active (visible in the red bar), but if nothing is highlighted, the calendars will be shown as if all options within the group were highlighted. You can make the selection for your calendar by highlighting the relevant thumbnails and clicking on "Use selection" or by double-clicking on the thumbnail. The selected calendar will then be opened in the Editor.
Under product specifications, you can choose the year of the calendar and the start month. The calendar year comprises 12 months, beginning with the month entered. In some of the calendars (if there is enough room), you can choose to show bank holidays and even school holidays. As these often differ from one country and region to the next, you can enter your country here. If your country is not listed, then unfortunately the data is not available.
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Caution: Check all calendar pages (!) to make sure the bank holidays are displayed correctly. If a calendar cell is too small to fit the name of a bank holiday, the text might be cut off on the right and left or it might cover the date. In this case, please do not show bank holidays or choose a calendar page layout that has enough space for bank holidays. |
These entries are your own specific dates. You can specify a name, date and photo to be displayed on these dates in the calendar. You can also specify whether this is an annually recurring date, e.g. a birthday or wedding anniversary. Your own entries can only feature on suitable calendars, i.e. they will only be displayed if there is enough space. If there is not enough space for the photo, then only the name will be shown.
The selection area is different for calendar designs and creative calendars:
Here you can find your images locally (on your hard drive / data carriers) or in your own online photo albums.
Here you can find design variations with different photo and text box layouts. In the selection options, you can choose the basic colour of your calendar from various designs.
If required, you can choose a background for the calendar page currently shown in the editor by going to "Background". You can leave the background white or use your own picture as a background (command in the photo dropdown menu). There are template "page layouts" with various calendar styles available; choose one that you like or create your own. Then add the desired photos to the calendar page in the page layout.
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Tip: Choose images that fit the time of year. Example: spring flowers for March to May, photos of snow and ice for January, etc. Or photos that fit with certain occasions. Example: a wedding photo for the month in which you celebrate your wedding anniversary or a Christmas motif for the month of December. |
Clipart, masks and frames are also available for creative calendars.
(This is not available for the year planner, which only consists of a few pages). All the pages of the calendar, including the title page, are shown here as thumbnails for navigation purposes and to give you an overview in the page selection area.The scroll bar in the page selection area moves the thumbnails to the right and left. Click on a thumbnail to open up the corresponding page in the workspace. You can change the order of the pages by clicking on the thumbnail of the corresponding page in the page selection area and dragging it to the desired position in the page order. The month will be updated at the same time.
The toolbar contains the main tools or instructions that can be applied to the specified object or that can be used to add a new object. Please see the tool tips for extra information. If you choose a design calendar, many tools are not available and are greyed out. (See the chapter "Toolbar").
In the calendar editor work area, you can customise your calendar pages and add photos from the selection area. You can even create a page layout with photo placeholders and text and save it as a custom page layout. Or you can use a page layout template. (See the chapter "Working with page layouts").
The view options contain buttons for controlling the calendar view in the work area (zoom, full-screen, etc.). See the chapter "View options".
If you double-click on the calendar (the table with the days), the date or the month name in the calendar editor, a window will open up with additional calendar settings.
On the left is a slightly larger preview of the current calendar settings. In the second step, you can set the font type for all texts and numbers in the marked calendar element. Finally, you set the font size.
Because the font sizes of the different text objects can differ, the font size is entered as a percentage of the original font size (in increments of ten), so that all letters and numbers are scaled evenly. On the right is a selection of additional thumbnails you can choose from, showing you a great many ready-made colour schemes for customising the backgrounds, lines and text of your calendar. If the "For calendars of the same type" checkbox is activated (ticked), then the settings will apply to all calendar pages (months) in the calendar editor that have the same calendar. You can also change the date and month name in this way. If you use the same settings for the calendar elements, calendar, month name and date, the different elements will work together very well. However, you can choose not to, if you like the result.
In some calendars, e.g. the family calendar, you can add columns to the calendar. You can then enter the names of your family members in the column headers, so that each family member has their own area for notes and appointments. The first header line contains the name of the first column, the second header line contains the name of the second column, and so on.
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Tip: If you want to include bank holidays on a family/desk calendar, add one more column than you need to the calendar, and leave the first column without a title. Otherwise it is possible the bank holiday entries may take up the space for entering notes in the first column. |
The number behind the calendar type shows the various versions, then there is the position (right, left, top, bottom, centre, bottom right), possibly with different sizes. By double-clicking on the calendar in the workspace (on the page), you can select a different colour combination and edit different properties of the calendar.
In the Editor, under "Designs" or "Page layouts" tab, you will find the "Change basic design" button. With that you can reopen the calendar selection assistant and choose a different calendar.
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Caution: If you change the basic design, you will lose all the design steps you have carried out so far and will start again with an empty calendar. |