If your house is anything like ours, a house full of teenagers means that your
refrigerator is covered with messages and your family calendar quickly becomes
a mess. Notes get scribbled, appointments get changed, and game days are rescheduled.
This is particularly true during school months.
But you can use your trusty computer to help you keep the school calendar looking
neat so important meetings aren't missed just because there was so much scribbled
on that day that you couldn't even read what was there!
Microsoft Word has a Calendar Wizard that makes it easy to update and printout
neat new calendars, when things get too messed up to clearly read. And if you
have Publisher, you'll have even a wider selection of calendar designs from
which to choose.
To get started, open Word (or Publisher). In Word, just click File/New/Other.
If you don't see the Calendar Wizard, it means you didn't install the
additional templates available with Word. So drop in the Office CD and use the
Add/Remove program tool, that will appear when the CD runs, to add in
this additional Word template.
Once you get the wizard rolling, it's simple to have a quick monthly calendar
put together. Just click through the panels and make the selections. Publisher
will work about the same way, but you'll be offered several more choices.
You can create just one month at a time, or create a Word doc that contains
the whole school year right from the start. Just select the months you want
and that's it!
After you get the page finished, realize that it's simply a Word table! So
you can use your table modification skills to make any further adjustments you
might want.
You can select the rows and hit Ctrl/L to left align the dates, if you
prefer to save space.
While those rows are selected, maybe you'd prefer to have a calendar with grid
lines? If so, you can click Format/Borders and Shading and select the
Grid to easily add horizontal and vertical lines throughout the date
cells.
Once you have it looking the way you want, you can select individual cells
to maybe add shading to special dates? And you can easily start typing away
to add neat notes about important schedules. If you need to add a lot
of text, you can select the text and make the font size smaller, quickly, by
using the Ctrl/Shift/< shortcut keystroke. This will allow you to
easily squish in lots of notes.
So what if it's not perfect. You're not shooting for a design award, you just
need a readable calendar. Once finished, print out the latest copy to get slapped
on the front of the fridge. If the kids start scribbling additional notes and
it's time for a clean calendar again, just head back to your PC, reopen the
month from the file you saved and make the necessary adjustments. A neat, updated
calendar can replace the messy one in just a few minutes!
 If
you really want to make something special, be sure to read my other calendar
making article called A Labor of Love, which you'll find
at this link: http://www.mousetrax.com/calendar.html.
In that article, I go into more details and show you how to create a wonderful
keepsake calendar for your loved ones. By dragging out and scanning some of
those old family photos, you can add special pictures each month for the people
in your life who have birthdays or anniversaries on each month. It's a great
way to help you think about those special people on their special month.
It's not difficult and makes a wonderful gift!
You might also want to combine the two ideas. Create a special photo page to
print out for each month. Then just use the quickie updated pages for the
dates. This way you can put up a new photo page each month, but easily
update the bottom portion with clean, revised dates.
Need further help getting your complex Word docs formatted? Join our free
Word Doc Design support group! See this link for details: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Word_DocDesign/ .
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