Making Calendars the Andrews McMeel Way

See how one of the biggest calendar publishers around gets the job done.

Here’s a quick overview of the steps to use Make Grid and Text Stitch to get your calendar started in InDesign, just like the folks at Andrews McMeel do. And don’t miss our InDesigner article on Andrews McMeel.

1. Position the heading. Draw a large text frame, then use the Make Grid script to lay out rows, columns, and gutter space (Script panel > Application > Samples > JavaScript > MakeGrid.jsx).

2. After installing Rorohiko Text Stitch, choose API > Text Stitch > Auto Stitch to thread together the text frames so you can fill in all the dates quickly.

3. Use master pages to hold your persistent elements; this gives you a way to control the consistent parts of your design even while you’re working with the more changeable portions.

4. Once your formatting is in place, you can include dates, illustration, and additional calendar details.