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Colophon

The base font for this page is Trebuchet MS, a free font from Microsoft designed for on-screen readability at small point sizes. The headlines are 32 pt Times bold italic, combining elegance, classical proportions, and compactness.

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Made on a Macintosh using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Using PageMaker to Make a Calendar

by Michael Brady and Peter C.S. Adams

PageMaker comes with scripts to set up calendars, but they can be tricky to run and don't always give you as many options as you might like. But the scripts that come with PageMaker version 6.52 and its calendar template go through 2003. If you want to use the template, you can get to it from the Scripts palette.

CreativeProse has a nice PageMaker How-To: Create Your Own Calendar with a Script.

Note: Gordon Woolf passes along this tip from his wonderful Format newsletter:

In older versions of PageMaker you may find that the "Calendar 1" script ends at 2002. How do you create calendar pages for 2003? The answer is to just add "2003" (and "2004" if you like) to the script. You'll find two places where there are lines which start with the word listbox followed by a list of years; one is for the Mac dialog box and the other for the Windows dialog box. That's all there is to it. The script, created by the man who wrote the script engine, Vladimir Samarskiy, does the calculations to create a calendar, including working out that 2004 is a leap year.

You may also want to try this old manual method.

First, on the master page, lay out the month template as you want it, putting in the calendar grid, if you like, days of the week, etc. Then, typeset the numbers 1 through 31, with a tab in front of each number (including the 1). Define a style ("Date") for the calendar dates that includes tab stops for the 7 days of the week. Apply the "Date" style to the numbers 1-31. Put them on each monthly page. When the first day of the month is not Sunday, insert a tab and move the date over to the correct weekday. The text will wrap at the end of the line to the next week if you have set the tabs and story width correctly. If you want, create a layer just for the dates, and put the weekdates there. Then lock the layer if you want to put other things in the calendar (holiday names, pictures, lunar phases, etc.)

If that's too complicated, here is an old typesetting trick, updated slightly for the computer age, that may work better for you. Set the following lines, set so the spaces between the numbers allows them to fit on your month template:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

This is a perpetual calendar that will work for any month. All you need to know is what day of the week the first falls on. To help, we have developed a simple Excel spreadsheet that will lay out the entire month for you when you enter the month and year. (4 KB Stuffit file. Download a free expander from Aladdin.)

Whatever day the 1st of the month falls on, count to the beginning and end of the week and lop off the numbers that fall outside those columns. For example, if the 1st is on a Wednesday, the calendar will look like this:

| S M T W T F S | | 1 2 3 4 | 5 6 7 2 3 4 | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 | 12 13 14 9 10 11 | 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | 19 20 21 16 17 18 | 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 | 26 27 28 23 24 25 | 26 27 28 29 30 31 |

And of course, just delete the last day or three as needed. Remember,

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.

Or use the "knuckle counter": Make a fist and hold it in front of you so you can see the knuckles. Using the top four knuckles (not the thumb) and the spaces between them, start with the first knuckle for January and work your way forward till you reach the last knuckle, which will be July. At that point, move back to the first knuckle for August. Each time you're on a knuckle, that month has 31 days!

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