Calendar Creator Plus 4.0
                         Copyright 1991 David Batterson

     I used to enjoy making calendars using Print Shop.  The finished product
was a bit unrefined, though, and printouts suffered from the jaggies.
     Power Up! offers a superior program for creating customized calendars.
The name is Calendar Creator Plus, and the latest incarnation is Version 4.0.
     While individual PC users, home businesses and computer groups will find
this program of use, it offers enough sophisticated features for serious
corporate application too.
     The program comes with Agfa Compugraphic fonts, CG Times and CG
Triumvirate (like Times Roman and Helvetica).  These are high-resolution,
scalable (6 to 72 points) fonts that provide good print quality, even on dot
matrix printers.
     You may use any black-and-white .PCX graphics image (more than 75 are
included) to accentuate your calendar events, and place in the top corners of
your calendars.
     A new Print Preview feature lets you see the calendar before printing
it.  This avoids unnecessary test printing.  You see a full page view, and can
zoom into any of four sectors for closeups.
     Calendar Creator Plus offers an extensive variety of calendar types, and
formats within each type.  This allows one to create the calendar YOU want.
     You can create a 1-year calendar, but you don't have to start with
January.  Since you may pick ANY starting month, you can print a fiscal year
or school calendar, for example.
     The 1-year calendar may also be printed sideways if you prefer.  You can
start with a day of the week other than Sunday too.  Other choices include a
title, footnotes and graphics.
     The 6-month calendar prints in sideways (landscape) format only, across
three pages.  Like the 1-year calendar, you may start the calendar on any
month.  The 3-month calendar is similar to the 6-month, but it allows more
space for events on particular days.
     A 1-month calendar looks like a standard wall calendar.  If you wish,
you can print the next and previous months in tiny size at the page bottom.
Other options let you print graphics, the day of the year, and type of week
(7-day, weekdays only or extended weekend).
     The 6-week calendar is similar to the 1-month, but lets you look ahead
into the following month.  Options are the same as the 1-month type.
     A 2-week calendar provides larger spaces to show events during any two
weeks.  You can start on any day of the week you want.  The 1-week calendar
is similar, but has even more space for events.
     The 1-week schedule divides up each day into time-period boxes; you can
specify the starting hour.  There are 2-day, 1-day and text-only calendar
formats too.
     Finally, you can print 1-year, 1-month, 1-week, 1-day and text-only
calendars in organizer notebook size, to fit Day Runner, Day-Timer and
similar organizers on the market.
     After setting options for any calendar, pressing <F4> brings up the Edit
Format menu.  This lets you select a typeface, size and attribute (such as
bold or italic).
     Calendar Creator Plus can be used using default settings, or you can
use more features.  One is optional banners.  For instance, you can put "Bob
Smith Vacation" in a banner spread across 1 week on the calendar.
     Another nice touch is the program's collection of proprietary extended
characters.  By pressing <Alt>-166 through 204, you can select tiny text
graphics, such as VISA card, phone, checkmark, shadow box, smiley face or
pharmacy Rx symbol.
     While doing this review, I thought of an idea.  No doubt you've seen
those "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders" or "Hunks of UCLA" calendars.
     You could create similar calendars for your club, organization or office
parties.  You would have to photograph your models and print those pages
separately, though.
     Calendar Creator Plus requires at least 512K and a video graphics card.
A hard disk is highly recommended.  It also supports LIM EMS 4.0 expanded
memory.
     This is an excellent, well-thought-out software program that should have
the programmers at Broderbund (Print Shop) burning the midnight oil to catch
up!  Additional Express Fonts are available from Power Up.
     Suggested retail price is $59.95.  For more information, contact Power Up
Software Corp., 2929 Campus Drive, P. O. Box 7600, San Mateo, CA  94403-7600;
415-345-5900; 800-851-2917 (orders).
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     David Batterson writes about diverse PC applications.  Send comments via
MCI Mail: 273-7218.