Last week we launched a new version of Blurb BookSmart with some pretty big improvements for custom Weekly Planners. We listened to the comments you gave us, and we think we’ve made them pretty great. Here’s a rundown on what’s new:
- Planners for 2013 and 2014 (even what’s left of 2012). You can also make planners for partial years.
- Custom fonts for months and days
- Editable text boxes for every day, so you can add holidays or other reminders
- Small photo boxes in the note section for every day
- A new size: 5 x 8 inches for better portability
Want to know more about making a weekly planner? First, download the latest version of Blurb BookSmart and then check out this how-to:
1) Start a new book.
Click “Start a new book”
2) Enter your title and Author name, then select “Weekly Planner.”
Enter title and author, then select “Weekly Planner”
3) Choose the dates you want your planner to cover and select a size. The 5×8-inch Pocket size is brand new, and fits nicely in purses and backpacks.
Click Trade or Pocket size
4) Add photos: If you’ve made a Blurb book before you’ll be familiar with this part. Use the default full-page template or choose your own (I opted for a layout with a landscape-oriented photo in the center of the page, and turned the background black). You can add large photos on the page facing the month page and small photos in the note space on weekly pages.
Add a photo for every month
Add a smaller photo for every week
5) Customize your fonts: Brand new in this version is the ability to change the fonts for months and days. Note that changing the front for one month will change all of them. Likewise changing the font for one day will change all of them. You can also change the color of the fonts too. Just click any month or day name.
Click to change fonts
6) Add “Year-at-a-glance” and “Notes” pages by using the “Add Pages” menu at the top of the page. Note that if you want the fonts on these pages to match other font changes you’ve made, you’ll have to do them individually.
The “Add Pages” menu lets you further trick out your planner
7) Add your own calendar entries: Want to note a birthday or anniversary? Just click a day, and start typing in the box.
Make it your day
8) Change backgrounds. Looking for further customization? You can change the background of your pages too.
Change backgrounds with the “Backgrounds” menu
Of course there’s a lot more you can do by playing with the “Edit Layout” menu, cover design, cover type, and more. But we think this is a good way to get started making a Weekly Planner that’s uniquely yours.
12 Comments
Neat! Are you working on a way to auto-import birthdays from a calendar app, or from Facebook? And adding public holidays for various countries would be a nice touch too…
Hey Mark,
All good ideas. I’ll mention them to our product folks and see.
Can you write on the paper?
Yes, John! It’s an uncoated paper so you can use pen, pencil, whatever you like.
I am waiting for a Weekly Planner design that lets you put a picture per week on left page and the 7 days of the week on the right. More convenient than the Monthly planner . . .
Are there only dated planner pages or is there a perpetual calendar option?
Hey Trudy,
Thanks for the feedback! Not sure if this is something we’ll be adding for next year, but I’ll our team know it’s something you want.
best
Kent
Hey Judy,
They are all dated. But it’s something we could add in the future.
best
Kent
is there a service where we send the pictures to you on a cd and you make the planner or book or whatever and then ship? – DIY is daunting – and never works properly – always some snafu
Hey Ramesh,
That’s not something we provide – I think it would just end up being too expensive for our customers. We actually think DIY works pretty well though. You should give it a try.
best
Kent
Is it possible to add a year at a glance page to a notebook?
Hey Gabby,
Unfortunately, those are separate book types. If you started with a Planner, however, you could add year-at-a-glance pages and remove the other day/week/month views, and insert blank or lined pages.