Print your own diary.
I apologise now for the very specific geekery of this post. You all know what I’m like.
I have trouble with diaries. I’ve tried going digital with PDAs and things a few times, but keep coming back to paper for all sorts of reasons.
My problem is that I’m really picky about it. The layout, the quality of the thing - I tend to make them fall apart. In order to find one that suits, I’ve bought three this year, and none of them is perfect.
So, having stumbled across a website called DIYplanner.com (seriously, is there anything anyone can think of that isn’t on the interweb somewhere already?), I’ve decided that if I’m going to be so awkward about it, I may as well put together my own.
And having time on my hands on account of being in the throes of a job-hunt, I went ahead…
And here’s the result. What I like is to have the week on the left-hand page, faced by a plain lined page for notes/lists/whatever.

The ‘legal’ bit: These are by me, Mark Goody, enabled by the D*I*Y Planner Widget Kit v0.6 by Doug Johnson of DIYplanner.com, and they are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
The ‘how’: To use them you’ll need PDF reader software, like Acrobat Reader or Mac OS X Preview. The PDFs contain an about page for reference, a generic lined page you can use for notes layed out for right-hand (odd) pages - or you can print in anything you like from elsewhere. The rest of each file contains a series of dated, week-to-page left-handed pages to face your notes/to-dos/whatever.
Select the page-range of the weekly pages and print them to your evens. Flip ‘em however your printer needs, and print your choice of odd pages. Easy.
In two sizes (A5 and half-US Letter), we have files for the rest of 2007 (July-December):
- Jul-Dec2007wtv_nA5.pdf (50 KB) A5
- Jul-Dec2007wtv_n.pdf (49 KB) half-US Letter
And files for 2008:
- 2008wtv_nA5.pdf (71 KB) A5
- 2008wtv_n.pdf (71 KB) half-US Letter
Plus simple right-handed notes pages (line and gridded):
- notes0_1-A5.pdf (2 KB) A5
- notes0_1-classic.pdf (2 KB) half-US Letter
And finally a zip of the original OpenOffice.org 2 Draw files, for your tinkering joy:
- wtv_n_0_1.zip (66 KB)
If you find these useful, please let me know by leaving a comment, or by email to blog AT marramgrass DOT org DOT uk. Cheers.
UPDATE 6/07/2007: Added seperate PDFs with options for the ‘Notes’ pages.
UPDATE 31/8/2007: Added zip of Oo.o source files as per request.
UPDATE 14/11/2008: The 2009 edition is now available.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:13 am
You forgot to add in my birthday… ;-)
Looks good though. very similar to the one i have in paper format from collins Dedben ltd in glasgow. I cant beleive i am writing this, but i have the Pocket week which comes with a very handy update feature - onto my 5th year now.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:16 am
You know, I like the lined look, but the more I think about it, the grids would help with dividing up the paper for multipurpose. Maybe you could add both to the pdf, or add another pdf, to allow people to choose. :-)
-DIYPlanner jonglass
July 6th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I’ve uploaded seperate PDFs with notes pages - this way it’s dead easy to add more of them as I work them up :)
July 6th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
These are really great. I’m compelled by your choice of grid vs. ruled element. (It appears many of the folks at DiyP share the same feeling.)
July 6th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I am soooo tempted to chuck what I had been using for 2007 in favor of this… going to try out a couple weeks. :) Thank you for all your hard work on this ♥
July 7th, 2007 at 5:52 am
An A5 2-up version would be great as well, since you can print A4 and cut these in half.
July 7th, 2007 at 6:45 am
These look great. I had been trying to decide what to do with my remaining blank Junior size Levenger paper. It looks really, really good: pictures on Flickr.
August 25th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Is there any possibility of you posting the source files for these? I like your layout, but I’d want to put some additional information on the pages for a school-year calendar.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Done :-)
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Thanks so much for these! I took the source file and modified the rest of this year for letter-size, so if anyone wants it, email me (**email address removed**) and I’ll send you the file.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I’ve removed Heather’s email address with her agreement - to deter spammers from preying on her.
She will be sending me the US letter-size modifications she’s made and I’ll stick them up here for download.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Have you received the letter size mod forms yet? I am setting up letter size and would like to try them out!