InDesign template for Day Planner

[lem1983]

I've been given the task of creating an employee day planner.  The company wants to be able to put company events and "thoughts" throughout the planner.  In this day of blackberrys and iphones, I don't really see the point of traditional planners, but it isn't my decision.  Does anyone know where I can get a template for an entire planner?  I was told to bring several examples to an upcoming meeting.

[Eugene Tyson]

Even though I have a cool phone that can synch everything from my phone to my computer and vice versa, I still need to write everything down. It becomes a permanent record (unless I throw it out).

Day planners are easy to do with a few numbered paragraphs and styles you could create a day planner with as many pages as you want.

If you're looking for a template then check out this handy set of templates by Adobe http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?from=1&o=desc&exc=19&event=productHome&s=5&l=-1&cat=225

[lem1983]

I think I will just create my own template, but does anyone know of a way to easily populate the dates?

[Jongware]

Use a script

This fast one (5 minutes) inserts all dates for the coming year. Jan 1st is a friday, hence it starts with 'weekday = 5'.

var months = [ "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" ];
var length = [ 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31 ];
var days = [ "Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat" ];
count = 0;
day = 0;
month = 0;
weekday = 5;
str = "";
while (count < 365)
{
 count++;
 str += days[weekday]+", "+(day+1)+" "+months[month]+"\r";
 day++;
 if (day >= length[month])
 {
  day = 0;
  month++;
  if (month > 11)
   month = 0;
 }
 weekday = (weekday+1) % 7;
}
app.selection[0].contents = str;

Copy, paste into a plain text editor (InDesign's own ESTK is good) and save as "writeWeekdays.jsx" in your Scripts folder. Create a new text frame, have it selected, then double-click the script.

[uupright]

The script worked great but how would I get a single date on each page instead of all in the one textbox?

Thanks!

[loriot123]

That is a tremendously useful script, thank you very much!

Do you know if there is a way to make the number for the day always have 2 digits (03 instead of 3)?

[Jongware]

Hey that's my handiwork. Gosh.

Change this line

str += days[weekday]+", "+(day+1)+" "+months[month]+"\r";

to this

str += days[weekday]+", "+(day < 9 ? "0" : "")+(day+1)+" "+months[month]+"\r";

to get a quick-and-dirty '0' in front of the small figures.

[loriot123]

Thank you very much! I'll try it right away.

I'd love to hear your opinion on this:

I'm trying to make a day planner where I have the weekday (MON, TUE…) in one text field and the date (01/01/2011, 01/02/2011…) in another text field on each page. I tried to do it this way, but it only works if everything is in one thread. I just manually threaded 365 pages but this is a very time consuming and unflexible approach.

Any ideas on doing it smarter? Maybe a Plug-In or Script I could use? Thank you very much for your time!

[Peter Spier]

Rorohiko.com has a text threader script you might want to check out.

[loriot123]

Thanks for the tip!

[feraguilari]

Hey, I would really appreciate if you could explain how to get each date on a different page because everything is showing in the same textbox. Thanks!

[Peter Spier]

Try editing the keep options of your paragraph style to "start in next frame" or next page.

[Ysmay]

Did you ever figure this out?

[nicoletteclaire]

This is amazing! I do have a question, though I understand this is years later so I hope you will get this @_Jongware_

I will play with this code, but I'd love to know your thoughts. 

I am making a quarterly planner. It is dated (or that's my goal, figuring out the dating has been challenging. I figure I need to break this up into 4 separate files? 

I'm going to attempt to adapt this code so I can use it for quarterly planning. I.E. January - March, April-June, July-Sep, Oct-Dec. 

So, what I've done is adjusted:

var months = [ "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" ];

to  var months = [ "Jan", "Feb", "Mar"]; for the first quarter.

var months = [ "Apr", "May", "Jun"]; for the second quarter, and so on. 

I've also adjusted: var length = [ 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31 ]; to var length = [ 31, 28, 31]; for the first quarter, and will continue to follow the pattern.

My assumption is that I will have to manually adjust: weekday = 5; every quarter, forever. 

This is a planner I hope to make for years to come, and so the "weekday = 5;" script indicates what day of the week the month begins, correct? 

I am confused and wondering about this line of code: while (count < 365) Should I adjust to while (count < 90) ? I am concerned about this as there isn't always an exact 90 in a quarter. Thoughts on this?

And lastly, since this will be 4 scripts, not just 1 for an entire calendar year, is there any problem with saving the file differently than what you wrote above?  Instead of "writeWeedays.jsx" could I save it as "writeQuarter1.jsx" and "writeQuarter2.jsx" etc. 

I hope to hear from you! I'll see if I can figure it out on my own, but I'd love input.  Thanks so much! 

[Eugene Tyson]

I use auto numbers and don't carry them across storys.

A simple return in the box invokes the number. Just delete the return in cells for days you don't want in the calendar.

Here's an example of how I do it with tables

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=TzY0dFdRdWNoeVpMWEE9PQ

[MAirMoore]

Hi All,

I have been introduced to the very helpful calendar wizard!

It is an downloadable script!

Makes it in a jiffy!

Calendar Wizard Home