For a while now, I’ve been wanting a printable view of my Google Calendar. I maintain a family calendar of all birthdays and there are some family members that want a printable calendar.
Google Calendar does not wrap all day events in the month view, so you have to hover to look at the full event details.
So, I finally spent some time today to work it out. It was time consuming and annoying so I hope someone benefits from this to make it less time consuming for them.
Ingredients
- Minimalist for Google Calendar – Chrome Extension to enable custom CSS in Google Calendar.
- The Custom CSS to add to the Minimalist Chrome Extension.
- PDF Binder to create the full 12 month calendar.
Method
- Install the Chrome Extension.
- Show only the calendar you want to print in your Google Calendar.
- Set your default calendar settings to month view.
- Add the Custom CSS and then tweak the settings to ensure everything is hidden in Google Calendar.
- Resize the browser so the calendar fits nicely on one page.
- You should end up with a page in your browser that looks like the image below.
- Print each of the 12 months to PDF (right click > print > choose PDF).
- Save them somewhere locally.
- Use PDF Binder to bind them together into one PDF file.
- Email or Print that PDF File.
Voila! One print quality calendar has been created. (Well sort of print quality – it does not render perfectly but I’m sure someone with more CSS expertise could make tweaks to the custom CSS to get it more perfect).
I’m sure there are other ways to do this, but this one works.
Lol, thanks Joe for the thoughtful reply. Whilst it does not exactly fit my requirements, it is a handy overview for people who do want to use a Mac (and no the small font was not an option to show the whole birthday details on the printed output).
He he, I never propose Unicorns and rainbows, but I hear ya. And I’m the first one to whinge about what OSX gets wrong, and it does get things wrong.
BUT:
Yes, the iCal does truncate events when displaying month view, but if you are printing, it word-wraps the timed event, and if you choose the small font setting in the print dialog, it fits even long-named birthdays in the space. So truncation or wrapping is less of an issue.
Also, you can avoid shaded backgrounds behind events by changing the calendar colour to white. You might be able to do that in GCal settings as well, negating need for a CSS change.
Also, in iCal you don’t need to assemble the disparate PDFs since you can print as many calendar pages as you like straight to one PDF.
And finally, When you PRINT the calendar, it offers handy options like a mini month view in the top corner, showing last month, this month, next month, as well as the ability to remove either timed events or day events from the calendars being printed.
So I agree that it may not have ticked all the variables you were after, It also offers some nice options of its’ own…
Oh, and you can read and write to your Google Calendars from iCal, something Outlook won’t let me do.
Oh, and it’s the only calendar I’ve found so far that lets you create repeated events on the 1st and 14th of each month (bi-monthly).
(but this smug, apple-lovin’ self-satisfaction is probably NOT what you wanted to see in here! – feel free to delete as required.)
I’m sorry Joe… no offence to you, but this is the exact reason I got a Mac – to test out the “just get a mac” theory of everything. Seriously, the way Mac people talk, I was expecting rainbows and unicorns when I first opened the lid.
Unfortunately iCal is not the answer. The day events also do not wrap in the month view, so they events are getting cut off on the printed output.
Also, the day events appear shaded and I wanted them to appear with no border or no background so just the text is visible.
At least with CSS I can customise the calendar display to be exactly like I want*
* Well within the limits of my CSS ability – there were a few things I could not do.
…or just use iCal. :p
But well done for working a way through it… Very impressive!