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’s exactly what happened 10 years ago when we launched our calendar service, Calidario: Back then, Tobias Köngeter was creating all kinds of calendars in the prepress department of a printing company. Updating the days of the week, dates, and holidays was a tedious task that required a great deal of patience and concentration — and so it happened one day that, in one of the calendar layouts, Christmas Eve fell on December 23. Despite the care taken, this obvious error had initially been overlooked amid the vast amount of calendar data. For Tobias, one thing was clear: There had to be a better way to create calendars! And with the resulting search for and development of innovative calendar automation solutions, Calidario was born.

Calidario Makes 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, we have developed a comprehensive solution for calendars and calendar data that allows graphic artists and designers to focus on their creative work. Careless errors in manual data entry, as well as the preliminary research required for extensive data updates on 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 includes wall planners, three-month calendars, and photo calendars. Additional calendar types are available upon request. Customizable concept calendars — such as the No-Waste Calendar — are also part of the offering. All of them can be generated in multiple languages and with freely combinable calendar dates — all within minutes. Young Tobias could never have imagined this back then.

Database with Interfaces Enables a Variety of Calendars

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 massive 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 calendar creation: It automatically combines layouts with large datasets and generates an IDML file for Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress, or Affinity that designers can customize as needed — or, alternatively, a ready-to-print PDF. This application also handles the translation of day and month names. Using Calidario’s extensive dataset, global holidays and school break dates can be combined. Additionally, other information such as zodiac 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 — since its founding: In addition to traditional printed materials such as calendars, we develop complete concepts and complex, customizable products featuring well-thought-out designs. 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 personalized books. Thanks to the diversity of our projects 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’re 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. In recent months, we’ve updated our holiday data through 2028, enabling our users to plan and create calendars with greater foresight. With a new visual editor, users can create calendar layouts without needing their own software and make necessary fine-tuning adjustments directly in the browser.

Even back then, Tobias knew that automated calendars were a good idea. Of course, he had no idea just how far the development of Calidario would go. With this in mind, we look forward to the coming decade with high hopes and great motivation, and we’re excited about all the challenges ahead.