Accordion Calendar Generator

This is the code used to generate Accordion Calendars (see accordioncalendar.com)

A calendar can is first generated in SVG, then a PDF output file is created.

Features

• Generates print-ready mechanicals, including bleed, crop marks, fold marks, and outlined fonts
• Highly configurable: width, height, start date, and number of months.
• Calculates the appropriate page breaks for the first row of every page to start on the 1st of the month.
• Adjusts layout depending on week start day.
• Preconfigured templates for layouts and physical paper sizes.
• Adjusts output to based on physical paper size available
• Automatically adjusts the height of rows to the number of weeks per month.

Usage

Run following command will create a calendar.pdf print-ready file in the current folder. (Run npm install first obvi.)

node index.js <start_year> <start_month> <number_of_months> <template> <week_starts_on> <paper_size>

Parameters:

• <start_year>: The starting year of the calendar (e.g., 2023).
• <start_month>: The starting month of the calendar (1 for January, 12 for December, etc.). Note that the calendar will calculate the correct first day for the calendar given the <week_starts_on> parameter.
• <number_of_months>: The number of months to generate (e.g., 12 for a full year).
• <template>: The design template for the calendar, currently offered in two sizes on the website (pocket and purse). These are specified in default.json.
• <week_starts_on>: The day the week starts on (0 for Sunday, 1 for Monday, etc.).
• <paper_size>: The paper size for the output. Options I use are (roll, strip, and letter). These are specified in default.json.

Example command

To generate a pocket calendar starting from January 2023 for 12 months, with weeks starting on Monday (1), in a strip layout:

node index.js 2023 1 12 pocket 1 strip

Custom configuration settings

You can override config settings with a local.json file in the config folder.

Server mode

When I'm working on visual tweaks, it's convenient to have the SVG generated in the browser, and to watch for file changes automatically. You can run a server on localhost with the following command (assuming npx is installed, obvi):

npx nodemon server.js

Todo/fix:

• implement better args management
• provide better export as a library
• provide easy option to remove cropmarks and export SVG file instead

Future work / ideas:

• provide version with fixed week height for non-printed / non-accordion version
• Support as an API/service to return SVG or PDF
• Multilingual support
• Split calendar multiple physical pages when necessary (e.g. print on multiple A4) - this was implemented in the original script, but removed in the refactor because I no longer needed it

Notes:

• Had to hack colour names in the CMYK colour conversion package, because an issue in the package itself doesn't allow for passing custom colours properly

Credits

• Code by Alex Brovkin
• A big thank you to the many people who provided feedback on the code, and the printed calendars

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0). You may use, distribute, and modify this software under the terms of the AGPL. This ensures that any modifications or derivative works that you distribute, even if accessed over a network, are also released under the AGPL. For full details, see the LICENSE file.