Definitely not for people who have to split their attention between several things.
Doing the dates for the calendars is a neat prospect! More dates at once, less time if you have your full attention on it, a nightmare if you don't!
The idea is to use your text editor to do a row of text at a time, VERTICALLY. For instance the row of Sundays, then the row of Mondays and so on paying close attention to the coordinates in the left hand corner. You need to know how they work first.
Location: lower left corner of the
PSP screen, as circled. The number to the left is the horizontal
positioning, the number to the right is the vertical position. As
you move your cursor around the screen you will notice that the numbers
change accordingly pinpointing the exact position of the pointer of your
cursor, first the horizontal position then the vertical position there
for if the numbers read 288,260 - you are 288 pixels from the left and
260 pixels from the top.
Next you need to have the rulers showing and set to inches (these get set in your general preferences, I think they default to pixels).
Next you need to have your dates layer
active.
You need to start the dates high enough
and far enough to the left to have room for all the dates. I find
that for most fonts at size of 36, 4 inch marker is okay.
but if you're using an abnormally large font, you may want to start at the left top corner to be on the safe side. For this tutorial, I am starting at the coordinates of 288,260 with my text tool. That's 288 pixels from the left which puts me on the 4 inch marker horizontally and 260 pixels from the top. Make a mental note or jot down the vertical coordinate you start with as you will use it for the rest of the dates.
Once the text editor opens, I set the font
I want to use and the size for the day. As you can see I chose one
called Gothikka and the size 18 which is half the size of the font I intend
to use for the dates. I chose to work with the calendar for June
2001 which starts on a Friday. With the font chosen and the size
set to 18, I type in 'Sun' for Sunday then hit the 'enter' key.
When on the 2nd line, I set the font for
a size of 36.
Next, I hit the 'enter' key because June
starts on a Friday and the first row of the calendar will be blank up to
Friday. I set the size for the dates on the first row so that it
will hold the size even though it's blank and maintain an even proportion
even though the space is empty so that when you get to Friday and put the
date in, it will be proportionate to the rest of the calendar. As
you can see the space and '3' are twice the size of 'Sun'.
Finish the dates for all Sundays and hit
the OK.
Should look like this.
I used white so I could Blade in the color
or make other changes.
Now, remember that we started at 288 from the left which is the 4 inch mark and when the cursor is precisely on the mark, the line at the top turns white.
Based on the last number in the list, I
judged that 3 quarters of an inch was enough for a legible space
between the rows, so I positioned my cursor on the 260 vertical pixel and
on the ruler marking 3 quarters to the right making the 4 3/4 mark turn
white - double check the coordinates to make sure you are still on the
260 Vertical and the ruler to see that you are still on the 4 3/4 line
then click for the text editor again.
Text editor comes up with the same numbers
and day. Starting at the top or bottom, highlight only the part you
are changing and change the dates by increasing the numbers by one and
then changing 'Sun' to 'Mon'. and click OK.
Next move the cursor to the same distance
from the 2nd column and you did from the 1st column, for this tutorial
3/4 of an inch and staying on the same vertical distance as before (260)
and after checking the coordinates to make sure they are right, click for
the text editor.
Once again increase the numbers by one,
when you get to the last day of the month depending on which month you're
doing, delete that line on the next column. Change the day of the
week and hit OK.
When you get to the day that has day 8
on the 2nd row, it's time to put the '1' in the top space along with increasing
the other dates and changing the day. Click OK.
After filling in the last column, Saturday,
deselect your dates.
You should have perfectly aligned rows
and columns for you calendar.
NExt, using the rectangle selection tool,
drag a rectangle around all of the dates
Like this.
Click on one of the numbers to float the
dates.
Like this.
Now you can drag the calendar dates to
anywhere on your calendar while keeping them perfectly aligned.
While the dates are selected, you can
flood fill, blade and drop shadows, then all that is left to do to the
layer is to add the Month name and year.
* I do not generally compress my graphics but for the sake of loading time - the tutorial graphics are compressed!