Mini calendars (or ‘dates at a glance’ calendars as I call them), are quick and easy to make in Affinity Publisher, and then use them wherever you like, on any printable design. I’ve made them in other software but it takes too long in Photoshop, is a bit too complicated when used with other design elements in Excel and can be frustrating to align in Microsoft Word.
I shared more reasons why I’ve made the switch to Affinity Publisher is this post: 10 Reasons why I switched from Adobe Photoshop to Affinity Publisher
If you haven’t already, you can download Affinity Publisher here. It’s only $85 AUD (approx. $61 USD / 45 GBP). You can install the software on multiple computers for the one price too.
How to make dates at a glance calendar
In this video I show how to:
- Make mini monthly calendars
- Different design styles
- How to change colors
- How to change fonts
- How to resize
- How to set up a template to make many calendars in a short amount of time
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).
Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more graphic design and planner review videos
If you have any questions about this tutorial or there are other tutorials using Affinity Publisher that you’d like to see, comment below and let me know.
How to use mini calendars in your printables
Some printables where you might like to include a mini monthly calendar
- Monthly notes page
- Previous & next month on a monthly calendar
- Annual overview
- Quarterly planning
- Weekly spread or weekly overview page
- Computer screensavers
- You can insert printables, including ones with mini monthly calendars into a digital planner (see this post for a tutorial)
You can also use this template to create a photo calendar and full size calendars with boxes to write in. I share how to do that in my ecourse: How to make printables in Affinity Publisher.
Scroll further down this post for some design examples. But first, some tips for making printables.
Choosing Colors
If you’re not sure what color to use, I would go with black. I used to use color (especially rainbow) on all my printables and still do occasionally, but I’m leaning more towards only using black nowadays. That way I can add as much color as I like using pens, highlighters, dot markers, stickers and washi tape without them clashing with the colors of the planner. Black is very ink friendly too!
Related post: How to Choose a Printer (Including the best printer for printing printables)
You could use grey but that can actually be quite hard to find the right shade. Some shades are too dark or too light when paired with a white font, and then you can’t read the font. I would definitely do some test prints if you use grey (or any color other than black).
You can change the color of:
- Text
- Borders
- Backgrounds
You can do one color, two colors, rainbow colors etc. Here are some different color & style combinations:
Choosing Fonts
The font used in this tutorial was Anton. It’s a bold, easy to read font that looks great in uppercase and lowercase.
I did another tutorial showing how to use fonts and the text tool in Affinity Publisher (click here)
If you’re not sure how to download and install fonts or where to find them, I did a tutorial here.
Related post: 40 of the best cursive fonts for making printables
Design Examples
If you want to create a calendar screensaver
If you want to use the mini calendar to make a computer screensaver, go to what is my screen resolution and enter the dimensions in the page size when you set up the template in Affinity Designer OR in the export menu.
File > Export and choose your file format (PDF, JPG or PNG).
E.g. my laptop screen is 1536 x 864 pixels
Looking for more Affinity Publisher Tutorials?
I have an entire ecourse where I teach how to make all types of planner printables in Affinity Publisher
Some of the things you’ll learn how to make in the course:
- Daily planners
- Weekly planners (many different types of layouts)
- Monthly calendars (many different types of layouts)
- Lined notes pages
- Graph notes pages
- Checklists
- Budgeting & bill trackers
- Habit trackers
- Recipe printables, divider & cover pages
- Personalised covers
- How to make monograms
- How to make a stripe pattern
- How to use patterns in your printbales
- How to use clipart in your printables
- How to prepare files for printing
- Printing tips
- How to resize printables
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