So it's this time of the year again... many of you will be producing calendars for yourselves or for your Clients. So I have set myself a little project to make your life easier. But, you will need InDesign CS6 (which is also part of your Creative Cloud Membership) to be able to work with my files, because I am using Liquid Page Rules so that you can easily modify my document to format you like. This is a great example of how Liquid Page Rules can be very useful in your print design projects, and not only for producing layouts for tablet devices. Print FTW! ;-)
Download the InDesign source file here:
Calendar 2013 Folder [6.1Mb, ZIP archive]
Here's what I did to create the layout so it is as flexible as possible:
A. Conditional text.
I have included the names of months and days in English, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and French. By using conditional text you can choose which language(s) to keep. If you don't see the Conditional Text Panel, go to Window > Type & Tables > Conditional Text.
With all languages on.
With just English, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese.
B. Paragraph Styles.
For all texts (months, days, and moons) I have prepared Paragraph Styles which you can symply change from the Paragraph Styles Panel. If you don't see the Paragraph Styles Panel, go to Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles. By opening the styles from the panel you will be able to change the text formatting such as fomnt or size.
Easily change text fromatting from the Paragraph Styles Panel.
C. Object Styles.
All text frames have an Object Style applied to them so you can change their appearance globally. The text frames with the dates in them, for example have an object style that makes their background white and applies a border around the frame itself. By opening the Object Style you can change that color, apply transparency, remove or edit the strokes. If you don't see the Object Styles Panel, go to Window > Styles > Object Styles.
Object Style applied to a Text Frame. To edit the style double click on the style name in the panel.
And now... the icing on the cake:
D. Liquid Page Rules.
I created the calendar in the horizontal A4 format, but because I applyied Liquid Page Rules you can create alternative layouts at the format or orientation you need.
The original document as you will find it.
When using the Page Tool (in the InDesign Toolbox) you can manually change the size of the page to see how it resizes:
As you can see above, the elements on the page resize exactly as they should, based on the choice I made in the Liquid Layout Panel. If you don't see the Liquid Layout Panel, go to Layout > Liquid Layout.
To create an alternate layout with your orientation and dimensions, use the menu in the Pages Panel and choose "Create Alternate Layout...", enter the new dimensions, hit enter, et voilà! Of course you may have to do some tweaking, like adjusting text formatting (Paragraph Styles Panel), object formatting (Object Styles Panel), etc...
For each month you can place your own images. The frame has been set to scale for when the size or orientation changes.
Feel free to experiment with my calendar and use it for your projects. Let me know if you do.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I have been very careful in checking dates and moon phases during the creation of this calendar, I cannot however be held responsible if there are errors or inconsistencies. Thanks, for your understanding.