From failure to success: We’re celebrating 10 years of Calidario

Good ideas usually have one thing in common: they often arise from an unfortunate situation, and a mistake then gives rise to a solution that at the very least resolves the problem and, ideally, even paves the way for an innovative approach that brings further benefits.

That is exactly what happened 10 years ago when we set up our calendar service, Calidario: back then, Tobias Köngeter was producing all kinds of calendars in the pre-press department of a printing works. Updating the days of the week, dates and public holidays was a laborious task requiring great patience and concentration — and so it happened one day that, in one of the calendars, Christmas Eve fell on 23 December. Despite the care taken, this obvious error had initially been overlooked amidst the vast amount of calendar data. For Tobias, one thing was clear: there had to be a better way to create calendars! And from the resulting search for and development of innovative calendar automation solutions, Calidario was born.

Calidario creates time for creativity

Calidario now uses our award-winning software ManyPrint Solutions to generate both simple and complex calendar layouts for 249 countries in 118 languages. With a complementary printing service, a comprehensive service for calendars and calendar data has been developed, allowing graphic artists and designers to concentrate on their creative work. Careless errors in manual data entry, as well as the preliminary research required for the extensive updating of data on public holidays, days of the week, moon phases, etc., are now a thing of the past.

Calidario offers the full range of standard calendar formats: the configurator currently offers a choice of wall planners, three-month calendars and photo calendars. Further calendar types are available on request. Customisable concept calendars — such as the No-Waste calendar — are also part of the range. They can all be displayed in several languages and with freely combinable calendar dates. And all within minutes. Young Tobias could never have dreamt of this back then.

Database with interfaces enables a wide range of calendar options

To ensure that this wide variety of calendars can be produced reliably and in the shortest possible time, a robust technical foundation is required. The complex integration of layouts with vast datasets, as well as their automated creation, is made possible through the use of interfaces.

Our automation software, ManyPrint Solutions, is at the heart of the calendar creation process: it automatically merges layouts with large datasets and produces an IDML file for Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress or Affinity, which designers can then customise as required — or, alternatively, a ready-to-print PDF. This application also handles the translation of day and month names. Calidario’s extensive dataset allows you to combine public holidays and school holidays from around the world. Furthermore, additional information such as star signs or moon phases can be included.

The close integration of design, programming and automated layout has been a hallmark of our company WirbelWild — which includes Calidario and ManyPrint Solutions — ever since its foundation: alongside traditional printed materials such as calendars, we develop complete concepts and complex, customisable products, all featuring a well-thought-out design. We are involved in the development of our clients’ products from start to finish — this applies to company calendars just as much as it does to personalised books. Thanks to the diversity of our tasks and applications, we know how to handle large volumes of data and use them to get the most out of them for our clients, tailored to their specific needs.

The best solutions for the future

Even after 10 years, we are still far from tired of constantly refining our products. Challenging cases continue to help us develop better solutions to this day. Our calendar database is growing steadily. Over the past few months, we’ve been able to update our holiday dates right through to 2028, enabling our users to plan and create calendars with greater foresight. With a new visual editor, calendar layouts can be created without the need for separate software, and any necessary fine-tuning can be carried out directly in the browser.

Tobias realised even back then that automated calendars were a good idea. Of course, he had no idea just how far the development of Calidario would go. Armed with this insight, we look forward to the coming decade with great anticipation and enthusiasm, and we’re looking forward to all the challenges that lie ahead.