From Almanacs to Printable Calendars: A Short History of the Paper Calendar

For thousands of years calendars lived in temples, on stone walls and in the heads of priests and astronomers. Ordinary people knew the seasons and the festivals, but they rarely owned a calendar of their own. That changed with paper and printing. The story of how the calendar moved into everyone's home is also the story of why printable calendars are still so useful today.

Calendars in handwritten books

In medieval Europe the most common calendars were found at the front of religious books. Books of hours, prayer books owned by wealthy families, began with a calendar listing the saints' days for each month, often with the most important feasts written in red ink. That habit gave us the expression red-letter day for a special occasion.

These books were copied by hand and were expensive, so only the rich owned them. For most people, the church bells and the local priest were the calendar.

The first printed calendars

Printing changed everything. Some of the earliest items printed by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz were calendars. A pamphlet for the year 1455, printed in late 1454 and often called the Turkish Calendar, arranged its months as an appeal against the Ottoman advance. Another early print from 1457 listed the best days for bloodletting and taking medicine, a common use for calendars at the time.

Because a calendar is only useful for one year, printers had a product people needed to buy again and again. Calendars quickly became one of the most popular printed items in Europe.

The age of the almanac

The most important printed calendars were almanacs. An almanac combined a calendar with tables of sunrise and sunset, phases of the Moon, tides, eclipses, weather predictions and practical advice for farmers. For many households the almanac was the only book besides the Bible.

In America, Benjamin Franklin published Poor Richard's Almanack from 1732 to 1758. It mixed calendar information with witty sayings such as "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise", and it sold thousands of copies a year. The Old Farmer's Almanac, first published in 1792, is still printed today and is one of the oldest continuously published periodicals in North America. The woodcut on the cover of this post comes from an almanac of 1775 and shows an astronomer studying the sky, a reminder that every almanac rested on astronomical calculation.

Calendars on the wall

In the nineteenth century new printing methods made colorful images cheap. Businesses discovered that a free wall calendar with their name on it would hang in a customer's kitchen or office for an entire year. Advertising calendars with paintings, landscapes and illustrations became hugely popular, and some, like the Pirelli calendar first produced in 1964, became collectors' items.

The twentieth century added desk calendars, diaries, appointment books and planners. Paper calendars became tools for organizing work, school, family life and travel.

Why paper kept its place

Each new format solved a different need. Pocket diaries travelled with their owners, desk pads sat beside the telephone, and large wall planners let offices see a whole year of projects at once. Schools printed term calendars for parents, sports clubs printed fixture lists and churches printed their seasons and feasts. In every case the same advantage applied: a printed calendar is always switched on, needs no password and can be read by anyone who walks past it.

The digital turn

Computers and smartphones brought digital calendars that sync across devices, send reminders and share schedules with others. Many people expected paper calendars to disappear.

They did not. Digital calendars are excellent for reminders and meetings, but many people find that a calendar they can see without opening an app helps them plan better. A month on the wall shows the whole picture at a glance. Writing something by hand helps it stick in your memory. A shared family calendar on the fridge is visible to everyone, including children who do not have phones.

The printable calendar

The newest chapter in this story is the printable calendar: a design you download as a PDF and print at home or at a print shop. It combines the convenience of the digital world with the benefits of paper. You can choose exactly the year, start day, paper size and style you want, print as many copies as you need, and print a fresh one whenever your plans change.

That is the idea behind Tickmyday. You can browse the calendar library for ready-made monthly and yearly designs, or open the custom calendar builder to make your own, choosing your year, start day and paper size before downloading a print-ready PDF.

From clay tablets to almanacs to the printable on your fridge, the calendar has always adapted to new technology while keeping the same purpose: helping people see their time and make the most of it.

Cover image: Page from 18th Century almanac- Astronomer looking at heavens through telescope, 1775 LCCN2006687383, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.