If you’ve never made printables before then Microsoft Excel is a simple, quick & easy to use software to start with.
In the video below I show how to make a children’s chore chart but you could turn it into a weekly habit tracker, add routine tasks etc.
I use Microsoft Excel for this tutorial but you can also use WPS Office 2019 (which is like a free version of Excel).
To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon).
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Design Tips:
- You can start the chore chart on Sunday or Monday – it’s up to you
- Make sure you increase the row height so that it’s big enough for stickers, your child to tick the box etc.
- I recommend using no less than font size 16 for planning printables. For this chore chart, I used font size 24 for the main text and 48 for the title text
- You can change colors by clicking the arrow beside the paint bucket icon. If you don’t like those colors click ‘More colors’ and choose a custom color
- Change the font size, style and color for the entire printable at the same time by clicking the triangle on the top left corner
- You can add a list below the chore chart with the value of each chore like in the example below
- There are so many free fonts available these days, see this post for a tutorial on how to download fonts (and my favorite font websites)
- If you want to add graphics / clipart / images go to insert > pictures and locate the file on your computer. There is plenty of cute and affordable clipart on Etsy
More tutorials for making printables are in my ecourse (click here)
Finished chore chart:
Weekly Habit Tracker
If you want to create a habit tracker for yourself you can do so with a few quick changes to the template we made in the tutorial:
- Font style, size & color
- You may wish to add shaded lines
- If you’re going to print and add to your planner, I’d decrease the row height
- You could pre-fill the tracker with your routine tasks so you don’t have to hand-write them after printing
- You could add a goal and / or actual column like in the example below
You can either print and tick off each day, or if you want to leave it saved on your computer, color the cells when you’ve completed the task using the paint bucket / fill color tool.
More tutorials for making printables are in my ecourse (click here)
Printing the Chore Chart
- I recommend printing using landscape page orientation
- Be sure to check print preview to make sure nothing is cut off (go to file > print)
- Most printers will add a thin white border on all sides so keep this in mind
- You can remove the white border by selecting ‘borderless’ in your printer menu (note that cheap printers may not have this option) – see this post for helpful screenshots
- You can change the page margins in the print menu or the page layout menu in Excel (see screenshot below)
- See this post for printing tips
If you liked this tutorial there are plenty more in my ecourse! (click here)
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