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Fifteen month caldar program question

by timpears
12 replies
Hey, could someone put together a fifteen month calendar for me at a reasonable price? I need something that will give me a result like this one.



I can't find anything online that would work for me. What might this cost? Budget is tight, so before I put in a lot of work on this, would like to know what my expenses are?
#caldar #fifteen #month #program #question
  • Profile picture of the author DJL
    I would like to help you, but cannot see any image in your post.
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    I changed out the picture to my server so anyone can see it now. I didn't know it was unacceptable as I saw it, but I am longed into the site where it comes from.
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    Tim Pears

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  • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
    Use Excel to create the calendar part. The rest can be done by just about any graphics program. Make sure you use a good resolution camera, since I'm guessing that you want the picture to end up being seven or eight inches across. Your local printer can probably print and laminate the resulting PDF, or at least provide nice cardstock for you. (That's where most of your expense will be, I imagine.)

    Or am I totally misunderstanding you, Tim?
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    • Profile picture of the author timpears
      Originally Posted by David Beroff View Post

      Use Excel to create the calendar part. The rest can be done by just about any graphics program. Make sure you use a good resolution camera, since I'm guessing that you want the picture to end up being seven or eight inches across. Your local printer can probably print and laminate the resulting PDF, or at least provide nice cardstock for you. (That's where most of your expense will be, I imagine.)

      Or am I totally misunderstanding you, Tim?
      No, you got it right I think, but I am not sure how to do this in Excel as I need months in blocks and then either four to six across with 15 months to two years worth of months as shown in the graphic.

      It wouldn't be feasible to have a printer do just one copy I don't think, unless it was an instant, Xerox type printer. But I wan'ted to do this on my inkjet or my laser if I ever get it out of storage. For a give away for the dealer to everyone who bought a car, getting them done at local printer would drive up costs too much in my opinion.
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      Tim Pears

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      • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
        Originally Posted by timpears View Post

        No, you got it right I think, but I am not sure how to do this in Excel as I need months in blocks and then either four to six across with 15 months to two years worth of months as shown in the graphic.
        Rows and columns can be different sizes, (and you would specify each of those sizes, rather than doing it "by eye", so that the end result is all even). The separations between months are their own row/column. The month name is its own row. The day of the week is its own row. You get the idea. If you don't, drop me an email (David at Beroff dot com) and I'll get you rolling in the right direction.

        Originally Posted by timpears View Post

        It wouldn't be feasible to have a printer do just one copy I don't think, unless it was an instant, Xerox type printer. But I wan'ted to do this on my inkjet or my laser if I ever get it out of storage. For a give away for the dealer to everyone who bought a car, getting them done at local printer would drive up costs too much in my opinion.
        Depends on your budget, of course. If I just spent five figures on a car, if the dealer handed me a standard sheet of paper with a printed calendar on it, I wouldn't consider it a gift, I'd simply drop it in the garbage. If it was done by a professional printer, on stiffer cardstock, perhaps with light varnish or lamination or whatever, plus maybe a nice frame, I might give it slightly more (perceived) value.

        I really don't want to put your idea down, Tim, but as long as we're being honest, there's another concern with this approach. A two-year calendar is a rather obvious sales pitch, but worse, it sends a subtle, unconscious message that the dealer doesn't really expect the product to last any more than two years.
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        • Profile picture of the author SquaredSoftware
          Depends on what you want. Do you want a website/program to generate this? Are you looking to generate one each year, and just change the picture? Or are you looking for something which will generate each one on the fly?

          If you wanted a halfway decent program, you would need something which:
          A) Handles the image in the center
          B) Handles the name & address at the top
          C) Handles the customer name
          D) Is aware of the year & dates
          E) Creates the expected output, dependent on the output size, which loops over each day of a month to produce a calendar

          You would also need to take into account things such as leap years, etc.


          Obviously, the most complex part is the presentation layer, in formatting the output exactly how you have it here.

          If I were to estimate the amount of time, you would look at 2-4 days of development time, testing, user interface stuff (to get the files in, set texts, etc) which would produce a PDF, or image file with your sample information you've provided.

          Things depend on the going rate of your developer. If I were to estimate this, I think $100/hr for a contracted, competent, non-india-or-pakistan based developer is a reasonable ballpark. You would be looking at roughly $1,600-$3,600 for the final product.

          Alternatively, you could hire a freelancer, but you'll get what you pay for. In my experience, if you accept the offer which is the cheapest, you can expect a great deal of heaches and technical issues. There are some decent developers which work for a less expensive hourly rate, but $100 is a decent medium rate, in my opinion.

          Finally, you could use something, as others have mentioned, like Excel or some other format to produce something like this.

          My two cents.
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          • Profile picture of the author DJL
            I think cramming all of that (as per your example) onto a single page would be neither attractive nor useful to the recipient. It would very likely wind up in the circular file.

            In my experience, most car dealers do a very poor job of maintaining relationships with their customers.

            A computer program could easily generate a calendar customized for each recipient, one month per page, with recommended dates for routine maintenance noted with memoranda.

            Combine that with service discount coupons to encourage customers to get into the habit of revisiting the dealership on a regular basis.

            Sending the customer a new calendar every year would also be advisable, and the cost to do so would be minimal.

            I could adapt my existing program to this purpose just for the fun of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author DJL
    I have a VB program I wrote some time ago that includes a calendar function.
    It prompts the user to enter starting and ending month & year, then prints one month per page.
    If it would be useful to you, you can have the source code to adapt to your purpose at no charge.
    If that is not feasible, you might better enquire of local printing shops in your area.
    I cannot tell from your sample image, but it would probably require a large-format printer.
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    • Profile picture of the author timpears
      Originally Posted by DJL View Post

      I have a VB program I wrote some time ago that includes a calendar function.
      It prompts the user to enter starting and ending month & year, then prints one month per page.
      If it would be useful to you, you can have the source code to adapt to your purpose at no charge.
      If that is not feasible, you might better enquire of local printing shops in your area.
      I cannot tell from your sample image, but it would probably require a large-format printer.
      Not large format, only 8.5x11 format. I would not know how to edit the VB program source code. That is why I came to WF programmer's forum. But thanks for the offer.

      Thanks to all for their input.
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      Tim Pears

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