A Fabulous Find

It's amazing what you don't see when you aren't really looking.

As I was working on a project in Storybook Creator Plus 3.0 the other day, I happened to glance up at the Insert ribbon and I saw something curious.  At the far right side of the ribbon, there was an icon that said Calendar.

Hmm, I thought.  No one that I've been learning from has said anything about this yet.  (Of course, a couple of days later, I heard about it.)

So, I investigated.  What I found was a very neat tool … let me show you.

First of all, create a new project.  I made a 4×6 Landscape sized project for this example.

Once you have the project open, click on the Insert tab and you'll see the Calendar icon on the far right.

Calendar screenshots - Page 002

When you click on Calendar, a box will pop up on the screen, much like if you were creating a text box.  Go ahead and size the box to the dimensions that you would like your calendar to have.  (Don't worry, you can resize easily once it's created, too.)  Then click Create.

Calendar screenshots - Page 003

Here's what you should get:

Calendar screenshots - Page 004

Now for the fun part!  That calendar up there is ok, but in my opinion, it looks pretty plain.  So, here's the trick:  you want to right click on that calendar and select Change the month.  I know, it doesn't sound exciting, but it is!

In the box that comes up, you get all sorts of options for personalizing and editing your calendar.

Calendar screenshots - Page 005

From this box you can:

  • Change the month to any month/year you want.  You can also change the color fill on the calendar, the border width and the margin.
  • You can also click on Title style in the Element properties box on the left.  This is where it REALLY gets fun!  From here you have many options.  My favorites are Layout (you can have the Month and Year on the top, sides, or bottom of the calendar) and Font (because there are so many fun ones out there, why use Microsoft Sans Serif?), although you can change all sorts of colors and other things.
  • Click on Weekday style and you get the same options.
  • Keep progressing down the list and you can modify all sorts of things.  You can basically make the calendar look any way you want.

So, here's what my calendar looks like after I've gone down the list and modified a few things:

Calendar screenshots - Page 006

So, what if that style doesn't really appeal to you?  Well, you can even change the calendar style!  If you right click on Use a different calendar style.

Calendar screenshots - Page 007

Now you'll have a whole list of styles to choose from.  Give them a try and see what works best.  Keep in mind, though, if you change the style it will reset to the default fonts and styles, so you'll have to change those again.

There are actually more fun things you can do to personalize these calendars … I'll try to share those in the next few days.

Enjoy!

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