It depends in which language and for which market you are going to produce:
| German ISBN | UK ISBN for the English-speaking market | UK ISBN for the French-speaking market | |
| Easel calendar DIN A5 | yes | no | no |
| Calendar DIN A4 | yes | yes | yes |
| Calendar DIN A3 | yes | yes | yes |
| Calendar DIN A2 | yes | no | no |
| Square Calender | no | yes | yes |
| Rectangular Double DIN Calendar | no | yes | no |
Updated: June 2024
The formats have the following measurements:
DIN A5 portrait: 210 mm x 148 mm
DIN A5 landscape: 148 mm x 210 mm
DIN A4 portrait: 297 mm x 210 mm
DIN A4 landscape: 210 mm x 297 mm
DIN A3 portrait: 297 mm x 420 mm
DIN A3 landscape: 420 mm x 297 mm
DIN A2 portrait: 594 mm x 420 mm
DIN A2 landscape: 420 mm x 594 mm
Square format: 30 cm x 30 cm (ca. 12 x 12 inches)
Rectangular Double DIN: 297 mm x 210 mm and 297 mm x 420 mm
In order to turn your project into a professional product that can be sold, it needs a product description that you will have to add as part of the calendar creation process (see “’Product Description” tab in the Calvendo online editing tool). The product description segment consists of different components, including the title, author name, short description, advertising blurb and keywords. Please take a look at our step-by-step guide for creating a professional product description!
You will also have to choose a category for your calendar from the ones used by CALVENDO and book retailers.
Poster books are “books to hang on the wall”: images and texts are printed on a number of individual sheets (14 sheets) which have a wire binding like a calendar but no calendar grid (dates). Poster books are only available in DIN formats.
Poster books work well mainly when created for specific occasions, such as an event, an exhibition, promotional campaigns etc. To profit from recurring, seasonal chances to make sales, we always recommend using our calendar formats. If your idea for a poster book does not tie in with a specific occasion, we ask you to state your reasons in a brief note to the jury when you submit your project: why should it be published and how will you as a self-publisher support the sale of the product?
If you want to turn your calendar into a poster book, you must select a new cover image. This is the only way to prevent mix-ups and mistaken purchases. Choose a relevant title for your poster book but avoid the term “poster book”. Otherwise, there will be double entries in the retail catalogues.
Poster books that are selected for publication by the CALVENDO jury will also receive an ISBN, the CALVENDO logo, and we will enter them in the official book retail databases so that wholesalers and retailers can order and sell them to customers.
CALVENDO calendars and poster books in DIN formats have 14 pages.
The page breakdown is:
CALVENDO calendars in the square format have 26 pages:
The sheets are bound with a wire binding. Calendars in DIN formats have a ring-wire loop and square calendars have a hole in the pages for hanging them up on the wall.
The calendar grid (dates) of the square calendar indicates the days of the week in five languages. It has the same size as the actual calendar page with your image/designs (30 x 30 cm), and when the calendar is up on the wall, the page with the dates hangs down from the designed page. In other words, the calendar will cover an area of 60 x 30 cm (approx. 24 x 12 inches) on the wall.
All products are shrink-wrapped for shipping and square format calendars are also protected with a sturdy piece of cardboard.
The index page is on the back cover and features the imprint, which is mandatory, and the thumbnails, which give an overview of the product’s pages. If you wish to do so, you can also include your author photo and a few words about yourself.
In general, you may use any font that you have the rights of use for. When you work in our Calvendo editing tool, you can choose from a wide range of fonts that are provided free of charge and that you can use worry-free.
JPEG, color depth: RGB colour space with 8 bit per channel or grayscale, set the compression rate to 80 % or better quality. Your image editing program will tell you if your files have been saved in RGB mode and if the compression rate is too high.
In terms of format, please save your files as “baseline” (standard) JPEGs, not progressive JPEGs!
Note that images taken with a digital camera can be uploaded without requiring editing because they are always saved in the appropriate mode. However, it is always worth checking and optimising them with your image editing software. Blurry images cannot be accepted by our jury.CALVENDO products are printed with a minimum of 150 DPI and a maximum of 300 DPI. Projects containing images with a resolution that would not permit this print quality will be approved by neither our verification software that is part of our online editing tool nor by our jury. They are not fit for publication.
Suggested image sizes (height x width):
DIN A2 portrait: 7016 x 4961 pixels
DIN A2 landscape: 4961 x 7016 pixels
DIN A3 portrait: 4961 x 3508 pixels
DIN A3 landscape: 3508 x 4961 pixels
DIN A4 portrait: 3508 x 2480 pixels
DIN A4 landscape: 2480 x 3508 pixels
DIN A5 portrait: 2480 x 1748 pixels
DIN A5 landscape: 1748 x 2480 pixels
Square format (300 mm x 300 mm, = 12 × 12 inches): 3543 x 3543 pixels
Minimum image sizes (height x width):
DIN A2 portrait: 4961 x 3508 pixels
DIN A2 landscape: 3508 x 4961 pixels
DIN A3 portrait: 3508 x 2480 pixels
DIN A3 landscape: 2480 x 3508 pixels
DIN A4 portrait: 2480 x 1748 pixels
DIN A4 landscape: 1748 x 2480 pixels
DIN A5 portrait: 1748 x 1240 pixels
DIN A5 landscape: 1240 x 1748 pixels
Square format (300 mm x 300 mm, = 12 × 12 inches): 1772 x 1772 pixels
The image sizes listed here are net sizes, i.e. they do not include the necessary bleed of 3 mm for each edge!
If you want to know how large a print of your image can be given its resolution, you will find that information when working in the Calvendo editor (“Layout Editor” tab) on the right under “Info”: Click on your image and you’ll see the respective information there. If the resolution is too low, you will get an error message (formats are shown in red) after saving your work. Sufficient image resolution, is indicated in green, i.e. these formats are good to go.
It is best to find out if your image files comply with our requirements before uploading them, using any image editing software. Please consider that images printed on paper need to live up to much higher quality standards than images you view on a camera display or computer screen. Furthermore, digital printing (which is used for Calvendo calendars) tends to bring out the dark parts of images even more. It is therefore advisable to enhance the brightness and colours of your images beforehand (by adjusting saturation and brightness, respectively contrast). What you might see as a dark-grey colour on your screen, will turn out completely black when printed.
By the way, cameras that generate images with a resolution of at least 12 megapixels will provide you with images that are suitable for all CALVENDO formats!
JPEG file: max. 20 MB each
There may be several reasons why you can't upload images. The most common ones are: a patchy wireless connection, uploading directly from a storage device and browser issues.
Problem: patchy wireless connection
For security reasons, our system does not respond well to patchy wireless connections (WLAN). These connections often experience short interruptions and this leads to uploading problems. Our system responds with a warning and if this happens several times in a row, the server will shut down the connection.
Solution: It is best to use a cable link (LAN) for your uploads.
Problem: uploading directly from a storage device
Uploading directly from a storage device, such as a flash drive, a DVD or an external hard drive, may also lead to an interrupted connection.
Solution: Save your data on your local drive and upload your files from there.
Problem: Browser
Our system is designed to work well with all common browsers:
Internet Explorer 9.0 or later
Firefox 13 or later
Chrome 9.0 or later
Safari 5.0.5 or later
Opera 11.64 or later
Older versions should work as well. Nevertheless, there may be cases of certain browsers sometimes causing problems.
Solution: Try uploading with a different browser!
This is currently only possible for German-language projects using DIN formats. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working on enabling this function for all formats. The charge for such a proof is €11.90 and it can be ordered at any point during the design process. While the paper and print quality of the proofs is identical to the final product, the format is limited to DIN A4.
At any point, when putting your project together, you can create your own preview in PDF format and print it out on your printer. This gives you a decent idea of the design but is not a high-quality print, especially because you would not be printing on the same quality of paper as CALVENDO does.
We define a perpetual calendar as one where neither the year nor the days of the week are indicated. Only a numerical listing of the days (1,2,3, etc.) is given for each month, and February always has 29 days. Perpetual calendars can only be produced in DIN formats.
There is considerably less demand for perpetual calendars than for calendars for a specific year. If you still want to publish your project in this format, we ask you to state your reasons in a brief note to the jury when you submit your project, indicating why a perpetual calendar is attractive in this case and how you as a self-publisher are planning to support the sale of your product.
This option is currently only available for the German-speaking market and to DIN formats.
More information on the PDF-upload can be found here (in German).
We take care of updating calendar dates each year as long as you choose the „flexible calendar grid” option when setting up your project (see here). That way the correct calendar grid (dates) is imported at the point of publication and updated automatically with every new year. This option is ideal if you want to create a calendar not just for one particular year but a product that can be made available for every coming year as well. With a flexible calendar grid, the products you offer are always up to date without you having to make manual adjustments:
Calendar updates usually start around May/June and take until late summer. During this time, every published project gets a new calendar grid and the year on the cover is updated as well. You’ll be notified once your project/your projects has/have been updated.
Please note that the year on the cover will only be updated if you have added the numbers directly in the system, using a text box: Tap page “Layout Editor” > Click on “T+” in the toolbar at the top > Enter the title phrase and year in the “Content” field on the right > Select an appropriate font size/colour and position the text box position on your cover.
Should you have included the year in your image using your own editing software and then uploaded this file, the automatic update won’t work because our system is not able to detect the numbers and thus, won’t automatically update it it. In this case, you will have to update it yourself and then submit the project to the jury again, indicating in a note what you’ve done. Please note that for legal reasons we are then obliged to treat your project as a new one and there is no automatic guarantee that the jury will release it again for publication.
One last remark on the automatic calendar update procedure: It is a step-by-step process spread out over a certain period of time and sending the new data to the book retail catalogues also takes a few weeks because of the huge amount of data involved. We kindly ask for your patience during this process and do everything to make sure that your product is available in good time for the new calendar season.
If your calendar was set up with a flexible calendar grid, you can rest assured that it will be updated: Please do not duplicate your project and try to adjust dates manually!
Please see question 14.
Adding the year to the cover is not mandatory because CALVENDO automatically provides this information to retailers and end consumers (e.g., “Wall calendar 2016 DIN A3 portrait”). In some cases, the additional numbers on the cover might even upset its aesthetics, so we’ll leave this decision up to you.
See also question 14 (automatic calendar updates) for related information.
Because CALVENDO does not archive layout files, only the separate elements (images, texts, product description) that go into the layout prior to production.
Keywords are part of the product description. They are used in addition to the title phrasing and should not repeat the words used in the title. Keywords are provided for search engines and book retail databases and basically make your product come alive for them. Only through keywords do end customers who search for items and online retailers become aware of your product. We’d therefore advice you to take choosing keywords seriously and invest a bit of thought.
Below a few tips and how-tos:
Using the example of a calendar featuring Lipizzaner horses, with one image showing a stud farm: choose keywords like "Lipizzaner," "horses," "dressage" and "Spanish Riding School," but don't use "animals," "Spain," "stud farm". Or using the example of a calendar about Cape Town, good keywords would be: "South Africa," "Cape Town," or else "table mountain" and "Cape Hope" (if featured at all). Unsuitable keywords would be: "travel," "continent" or "botanical gardens".
You can also take a look at our free-of-charge video tutorial on calendar grids (dates) and picture captions that includes information on how to assign keywords.
In order to turn your project into a professional product that can be sold, it needs a product description. Please take a look at our step-by-step guide for creating a professional product description!
The product description consists of different element, including
The title
Give your product a short but snappy title that describes the subject! Example: If you created a dog calendar exclusively about labradors, don’t name it “Beautiful Dogs” but choose something specific and descriptive along the lines of “Labradors – The UK’s Favourite Breed”. Remember: People will have to be able to discover your product via its title and someone looking for a Labrador calendar will specifically use the term “Labrador” when searching and not “beautiful dogs”.
The name or pseudonym of the author(s)
Use your first and your last name and be consistent throughout: Don’t enter it in different versions, i.e. don’t use “Peter Stack” in one box and “Peter E. Stack” somewhere else in the project. When using a pseudonym, make sure that you don’t choose one that could be mistaken for the name of an existing famous person. Otherwise, you risk legal issues.
Short description
This is a succinct, one-sentence summary of what your product is about. Note that the short description is not a tag line or "claim" and will not appear in all catalogues. The PDF catalogue page that we provide in the system (next to your calendar in the product gallery on the Calvendo website) shows a maximum of 40 characters of your short description.
The advertising blurb
Remember that the quality of the advertising blurb is as important for the commercial success of a product as the quality of the product itself! Write blurbs that are catchy, to the point and convincing. Note that only up to 400 characters of the product description will be used for the PDF catalogue page.
Keywords
Keywords make your calendar come alive: People will only become aware of your product if you choose relevant keywords (search terms) that they might use when searching for a calendar like yours. For detailed information on how to assign keywords please see question 21!
A target group description for your product
If you have created a calendar featuring Lippizaner horses, this could be: horse lovers, horse breeders, riders, horse-riding clubs, racetrack operators.
One last general tip for product descriptions: In order to produce copy that makes sense and sells, come up with meaningful descriptions that take on the perspective of the customer. And: Do not waffle and use the first person! It often helps to apply the five Ws of journalism and answer the following questions: who? what? when? where? why?
When your product description is missing or incorrect, you can’t submit your project to CALVENDO. Should you have submitted a project with a product description that is questionable from a legal point of view (e.g., one that obviously contravenes the law), your project will not be released for publication.
It is up to CALVENDO – or rather the editors of the retail catalogues – to decide which information from your product description will actually be published. Please note that our catalogue and advertising department reserves the right to modify copy that you provide to describe your calendar in order to increase its salability. However, this is done only in very rare cases.
Not to forget: Please do neither use symbols in your product descriptions, i.e. in the title, brief description or blurb, nor on the cover or index page! Symbols such as +, &, *, / or –cannot be used in the catalogues of the majority of retailers and will lead to errors. However, you may use any of these symbols in your calendar page layouts because these are saved as images.
Sure. You are more than welcome to create a literary calendar, for example, or a project that uses interesting photo collages.
Yes, you can duplicate a project at any time and use it as the basis for a new one. Bear in mind, however, that the CALVENDO platform is not about mass producing more or less uniform products or (self-)plagiarised works! Each product should be distinct and unique. Originality and creative achievement are important assessment criteria for our jury.
Should you be multilingual and consider to offer your products in different markets, which is in principle a good idea, please also consider that aesthetic habits, ideas about quality and what is accepted to be featured in a calendar may differ in different countries. A product may do well in one market but not so well in another. Therefore, do your homework and analyse the different markets and cultures. This might also save you disappointment: Each of our main distribution areas (the German, French and English-speaking markets) have their own local jury. It is quite possible that, for example, the French jury will release a given project for publication but the English jury won’t.
Yes, you do. Please proofread carefully anything that you have written – texts that are part of your product as well as the product description. Make sure that there are no spelling, grammar and stylistic mistakes. It might be a good idea to let someone else cast an eye over it!
Our jury will consider spelling, grammar and style when assessing your project and projects containing noticeable language problems can, unfortunately, not be released for publication, no matter how good the images are. Make sure to use a standard dictionary for the language in question if necessary and always attach great importance to the quality of what and how you’re writing!
Yes, that’s possible: Log into your account, go to “My Projects” and “Projects approved by CALVENDO” where you’ll see a blue pen symbol that you can use to make changes. However, each time you make a change, you need to resubmit the project to the jury for assessment. During this period, your (original) product remains on the market and can be ordered.
If your jury approves the changes, the original (“old”) product will be replaced by the new one within approximately five working days and the new information will be passed on to retailers. Please note that it might then still take a considerable period of time until the updated information will take effect on the websites of retailers.
If the jury rejects your changes, the original product remains on the market. Should you wish to take if (or any product) off the market (i.e. stop it being published), you will need to withdraw it by clicking on the red button to the right of your published projects. Please note that it actually takes several days or even weeks before your product is removed from retail lists. CALVENDO has no influence on this process.
Important: During calendar season, i.e. from late autumn onwards when the majority of calendars are being sold, published projects cannot be modified. This period during which no changes can be reported to retailers lasts a couple of months. You will be informed via our newsletter or email about exact dates.
This period during which no changes can be made is absolutely vital because retailers are not able to reflect product changes in their catalogues during the extremely busy pre-Christmas season. We therefore advise our users to complete changes and modifications by late September the latest.
Go to your profile and click “My Content” where you’ll find your images arranged in your different collections. You can either delete an entire collection – by clicking on the trash symbol – or individual images: open the collection containing the image and click on the trash symbol next to it.
Image files that have not been used for one year or longer will be deleted automatically. This process is subject to the following criteria:
- The image files are not part of a published project.
- The images come from projects that have previously been deleted.
Feel free to upload new images any time.
Please note: If you have used an image in a project, it will remain there. To take it off the system entirely, you need to delete the image in the project (in “My Projects”). If this project has already been released for publication, you need to withdraw it altogether (also in “My Projects”).
You do this when creating your project in our online editing tool: tab page “Product Description” > “Categorization” on the right > select from the different options:
Select a subject (category), e.g., for an arts calendar category “A: The Arts” and then one of the subcategories provided, e.g. “AFC: Painting & paintings“, „AFF: Drawing & drawings“, etc.
For anything related to travel (such as calendars featuring specific cities or countries), choose “W: Lifestyle, Sport & Leisure“ and the subcategory “WT: Travel & Holiday“ where you can then also add specific countries or regions.
“W: Lifestyle, Sport & Leisure“ also includes all the subcategories for anything related to hobbies and leisure, e.g., pets, animals in general, sports, cooking, gardening, etc.
Important note: Don’t use the category “WZS Stationery items“, even if calendars are a stationary item because you would then “waste” an opportunity to classify your calendar according to its subject: Calvendo automatically classifies all your calendars or poster books as such (i.e. in the right stationary category) for retail purposes so that you are free to choose from the different category options that identify your work based on what it is about and specify it as much as possible. Please use these options and give this step your full attention!
One general remark about classifications: You might get the impression of classifying your product several times in the same product categories. Don’t be confused by that and carry on using all the three different options that are described above! These are simply different metadata systems used by different wholesalers and retailers that all work with their own data structures.
All the information you provide in the categorization section is passed on to wholesalers and retailers. Should you not provide any information or only very little, products won’t be accepted by retailers, respectively it is very difficult to search for them in online catalogues.
Once you’ve submitted your project for publication, we will check the information provided and, if necessary, add to it or change it. Ultimately, retail will apply its own criteria and decide which information to use and how to present your product. CALVENDO has no influence on that.
