How Do I Create a Calendar from My Photos in iPhoto?

You probably know that you can use iPhoto to make prints and even books from your digital photos. But did you know you can also make full size wall calendars in just the same way? It's just a few clicks away and easier than you would expect.

Starting Out
Get started by opening iPhoto and then select the photos you’ll want to appear on the pages. You’ll have the opportunity to have them large on the upper section of the page, in groups, and in individual “day” boxes on the lower section of the page. Knowing this going in can help you choose photos that will be applicable.

Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what you are doing with each photo, for you’ll have plenty of chances to add and subtract photos as you go along. Should you want to add more at a later stage, you can just drag the photos you want to your new Calendar in the projects bar and then select them from there.

Once you have a good batch to start from, find Calendar in the bottom toolbar and click it.

 

Choosing a Theme
Select the Calendar theme that best suits the group of photos you have in mind.  Take some time explore the themes offered. These templates are really where Apple software shines.

I chose Modern Lines because of its sleekness and minimalist appearance.  Press the Choose button to continue. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to go back later and change the theme if you aren’t happy with it

 


Linking to iCal
Next you’ll choose what starting month you want (it doesn’t have to be January), how many months you want in it (it can be more than 12!) and whether you want to import any calendars from iCal. If you are keeping track of friends and family members’ birthdays in an iCal calendar, this can be particularly helpful to include. If you don’t have a calendar set up in iCal for this, don’t worry for you’ll have a chance to enter information right into the boxes that represent days later.

 


The iCal calendars (above) section in the new Calendar preferences window that comes up correspond to the left pane of iCal where you set the categories for your appointments and which can be used to sort out your view in iCal.  As you can see below, I have a Holiday Calendar where I have labeled all the national Holidays of my country.  In the Calendar I create with iPhoto, I might want to include these to be shown, especially if I would be using them locally. 

 

Adding Photos
Enter a name for your Calendar and start dragging the Photos onto the drop zones for each month, starting with the cover. In all cases, you can drag the photo back to the column of photos on the left if you change your mind, so go experiment.

You might not want to use your best photo on the cover because you’ll never really see it once you are hanging it to see a month at a time. The cover photo will be the one facing the wall.

Navigation Note: At the top of the column of photos to the left of the main work area and to the right of the iPhoto Library and Albums list there are two buttons that toggle between seeing your photos for your calendar and the pages in your calendar. Go ahead and click back and forth on these to get a feel for how they work.

 

It’s easy to change the zooming and the panning of your photo. Just click once on it and an adjustments panel will pop up right next to it. If you zoom in too much and see a yellow triangular alert symbol, it means you have zoomed in too much to print nicely.

If you feel you need to do some editing of the photo to improve it, you can still double click on the photo to get into iPhoto’s Edit mode. When finished, double click the photo again to return to the calendar layout mode.

Layout Options
To see your options for how many photos you want on the page and the layouts available, click in the white area of the upper page and then click and hold the Layout button at the bottom of the work area. A pop up menu comes up and offers a bunch of options for the top section. Go ahead and play around with it until you see something you like.

Editing Days of the Week
Next, go back through the months and add photos or text to days within the months as desired. To add text, just click on a date and start typing. A nice little pop up window will help you enter the text. Just click the X in the corner when done and move on to the next one.

When you want to use a picture on a particular date, just drag it there.

 

Once again you can pan and zoom to get just the part of the photo in the box that you want. Double click the photo in the box to get these options. You also have the option of adding a caption for the photo on any side of it. To do this, click the Caption check box, write one and then select which side of the photo you want it on.

Go to the next month and repeat until you’ve finished all the months.  When this is complete, your calendar is ready! If you are really into fine-tuning your fonts and sizes, you can click the Settings button at the bottom, then the Styles tab to edit the global text styles.

Printing
There are a couple of options you might want to explore after this is ready: whether you want to buy the calendar and have it sent to your house or if you want to print it yourself at home.  I’d suggest having it printed and mailed to you. Whoever Apple uses for the printing does a nice job and can print it larger (13” x 10.4” ) than you would on your home printer. The price starts at $20 for 12 months with $1.49 for each additional month. Not bad!

Now go on and work on next Year’s Calendar to give to Aunt May for Christmas with pictures of your family! It might turn out to be the best gift she’s ever gotten.

Have you created a calendar and have some tips to pass on? How about more questions on how to do it? Let us know in the Comments section below.

DIG DEEPER

iPhoto Print Products on apple.com. Click  Calendar Details to see some example themes.

iPhoto Support – Creating a Calendar 

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