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Make your own Calendar
You may think it’s a funny time of year to start thinking about
Christmas, but this is a good month to take pictures and so I want
to explain how you can put together a calendar. You will need a DTP
package such as Publisher as it will already have built-in calendar
templates. For this project, you will need to be familiar with the
basic functions of your software such as removing unwanted boxes and
formatting your text etc.
1. Go outside with your digital camera, start taking pictures
and save them all into a suitable folder on your computer. (If you
follow this column and start the calendar with 2 or 3 pictures, you
can slowly add more to complete pages over the rest of the year.)
2. Open your DTP program, browse through the catalogue of
publication styles and pick Calendars. From the range of styles,
pick the one you like.
3. Double-click to open the publication. If necessary, change
orientation e.g. to portrait from the menu.
4. Change the date range to next year’s dates by clicking the
button and selecting from the drop down arrows in the various boxes.
5. Minimise the DTP program and then open any picture you
have saved into software such as PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro, or
your usual image editing package. If necessary, use the cropping
tool  to
cut off sections you don’t want: draw round the part you want to
keep and then double-click inside this area. You can also change
contrast or brightness via the Effects – Enhance Photo menu.
6. When you are happy with any selected image, click Edit
– Copy (or the Copy button). A copy of the picture is now in the
computer’s memory.
7. Return to your DTP application. At the bottom of the
screen you will see each page as a numbered tab. Click any of these
to open that particular month’s page. Delete the image on screen and
then select Edit – Paste. Your own picture will appear and
you can drag the borders in or out to set its size.
8. To make sure all the pictures in your Calendar look the
same, select the picture and then open the Format menu, click
Picture and look on the Size tab. You will see its
measurements and can make sure all the other pictures are the same
size.
9. Work through the Calendar pages, adding appropriate
pictures for each month, and then format the text as you like and
remove any unwanted boxes or shapes. If you want one object visible
on all your pages, add it when in the View – Master Page view
but make sure it is not obscured by other objects. Return to your
page by taking off the tick next to the page view on the menu.
10. As soon as you can, save the Calendar with a suitable
name.
11. When all 12 pages are complete, use a colour printer and
appropriate photographic paper to print out all your pages and then
staple or tie them together.
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