ImposeIQ Calendar Creator guide

Overview

Calendar Creator lays out a calendar from a start month, a language and a picture per month, shows it flat and in 3D, and writes the print PDF with the pages in the order and the way up the binding needs. It looks and works like the Envelope Creator: open it from Home, pick a calendar type or a sample on the start screen, and change everything on the right; Calendars… in the top bar brings the start screen back.

Calendar types

Each type has its standard sizes, and Custom size takes any page; Turn swaps the width and height. For the tent card the size is one face.

Months, language and holidays

• Start month, year and months: 12 months, 13 for a lead-in month (a wall calendar then has 14 sheets), or any count up to 24, rolling into the next year.
• Week starts on Sunday or Monday; Language sets the month and day names (17 languages). Names the standard PDF fonts cannot spell, such as Polish, Czech, Greek or Russian, print in the bundled Roboto.
• US holidays: the federal list is the MIS planner's. A holiday prints on its own date, and when the planner observes it on another weekday (July 4 on a Sunday is off on the Monday) that day says “(observed)”. Popular observances adds Easter, Mother's Day, Halloween and the like.
• Your own dates: one a line — 2027-03-14 Open house for one day, 7/1 Fiscal year for that date in every year shown.

Photos and design

• Add photos / PDF takes several images, or one PDF with a page per month, and fills the slots in order from the first empty one — the cover first. Drop files on a slot to start there, or on the flat view to fill the month on screen. A PDF stays vector in the print PDF. The checks warn when a photo will print under 150 ppi.
• Captions print small in the corner of a month's photo.
• Themes set the colours and fonts in one click; every colour and the title and text fonts can then be changed.
• Date grid: ruled boxes, shaded boxes, a rule under each week, or no lines. Rows: as the month needs, always six, or always five with 23/30 and 24/31 sharing a split box.
• Photo area sets how much of a one-page month, easel page or poster the photo takes, above or beside the grid. The wall calendar's photos fill their own page.
• Last and next month small in a wall calendar's heading, neighbouring months' dates greyed, ISO week numbers and capitals are options.

Flat, print and 3D views

• Flat — as read: each spread as the customer sees it, a wall calendar's photo above its grid with the wire between. Guides shows the bleed, the safe area, the wire-o holes and hanger notch, and the creases.
• Print pages: each page of the print PDF in order, as it lies on the press, with the backs turned the way they print.
• 3D: drag to turn, wheel to zoom, double-click to reframe. The slider and ▶ flip through the year: the wall calendar's sheets go up over the wire, the one-page calendar's go over and behind, the easel's go over the stand, and the tent card folds up from flat.
• ◀ ▶ and Page Up / Page Down step through the spreads, the print pages or the months.

Printing and binding

• Print PDF: every page in sheet order, front then back, with bleed, a trim and bleed box, crop marks and a slug line. A press backing up work-and-turn needs a wall calendar's photo backs turned 180° (they are read flipped up over the wire), which is how they are written; the easel's backs read head to head and are not turned. Untick Backs work-and-turn for a press that tumbles head over head.
• Wire-o: 3:1 or 2:1 pitch. The holes are centred along the bound edge and kept clear of the hanger notch, and the safe area grows on the bound edge so no type is punched. Punch guide puts the holes and notch in the PDF as non-printing, overprinting WireO and CutContour spot outlines. The Output card gives the wire size for the stack and the number of holes.
• Creases on the tent card and easel stand go out as an overprinting Crease spot colour, the stand's outline as CutContour.
• Proof PDF: one page per spread, as it is read, for the customer to approve.
• Output from an unlicensed copy is marked DEMO, as in every ImposeIQ tool.
• Samples: a seasons wire-o wall calendar, a double-sided studio desk easel, a year planner poster, a Spanish tent card and a French kitchen calendar. The pictures are painted in code; the company names are made up.

Staples and the hanging hole

• Wall calendar that opens up, Binding: Staples — saddle-stitched. The calendar becomes a booklet bound along the fold: cover, then each month's photo and grid, blank pages to make a multiple of four, and the back cover (28 pages on 7 sheets for 12 months; 13 months fill 28 pages with no blanks). The print PDF is in printer spreads, the fold across the middle, outside then inside of each sheet, the inside turned 180° for work-and-turn. Two staples go through the fold (three on pages over 14″ wide).
• A 1/4″ hanging hole is drilled 3/8″ in from the edge away from the fold, through the whole book; opened, the calendar hangs by the hole in its top leaves. The grid pages keep their type clear of it.
• One page a month, Binding: Staples — staples 1/4″ down from the top, and the hanging hole 0.6″ down between them; the type starts below the hole.
• With Punch and drill guide ticked, the holes go into the print PDF as a non-printing, overprinting Drill spot outline (wire-o holes as WireO).

Advertising strip

For a wall calendar, tick Make the last page longer and set its depth (2″ to start with). The last leaf then hangs that much below the others, so its foot shows under every month all year — the classic promotional calendar. Type the advertiser's text (the first line prints larger) and, if you have one, put the ad artwork in the Advertising strip slot under Photos: it fills the strip with bleed, and the text prints white over it.

• Wire-o: the strip is on the sheet with the last month's grid; the back cover behind it is longer too.
• Saddle-stitched: the strip is on the inside back page, so the outer sheet prints that much longer than the rest (the checks say by how much).
• One page a month: the last page.

The flat view, the proof and the 3D view all show the strip below the months.

Press sheet — multiple up

• Choose a sheet (11 × 17 up to 25 × 38, SRA3, B2 or custom), the gap between trims (twice the bleed to start with, so every piece keeps its full bleed) and the margin from the sheet edge to the outermost trim, where the gripper and crop marks go.
• The same page, repeated fills each sheet with one leaf as many up as fit, so a run needs calendars ÷ up copies of each sheet. Different pages, ganged puts consecutive leaves side by side, to be cut apart and collated. Pieces of a different size (a longer advertising leaf, the easel stand) get their own sheets; a piece too big for the sheet is reported in the checks.
• Pieces may be turned 90° when that fits more. The back of each sheet carries every piece's back at the mirrored place — across the sheet for a work-and-turn press, up and down it when the press tumbles — turned to match.
• Crop marks, and dashed fold marks for stapled spreads, sit outside the block of pieces. Press sheet in the view tabs shows each side; Imposed sheets PDF writes them, front then back. The card gives the pieces a sheet and the press sheets the run needs.

Templates

• Save as template keeps every setting on the panel — type, size, months, language, holidays, titles, design, advertising strip, binding, output and press sheet — and the photos when they come to under 4 MB, on this PC. Open, Update and Delete work on the chosen one.
• Export writes what is on screen as an .iqcalendar file with every photo in it (a PDF's pages are stored once); Import opens one and keeps a copy in the list.