Where to print photographic calendars?

I really should have started on this earlier, but I didn't, so I have to get on it now.

I volunteer with the local animal shelter and take photos of all the cats for use on sites like Petfinder, their Facebook page, the newspaper, etcetera. People have been pretty enthusiastic about the pictures (who doesn't love cute cats?) so I wanted to try and put together a calendar featuring some of those photos to use as a fundraiser for the shelter. My dillema is that I don't know where to have it printed. There aren't really any local places that do that. I've looked at the online photo labs that get recommended frequently and none of them seem to offer calendars other than this by mpix, but I was looking for a typical twelve-page wall calendar.

If anyone can help point me in the right direction, I'll probably love you forever.

I don't have any direct idea, because I haven't done it myself!

But, if you look down at the bottom of this page in the "Similar Threads" section, you will see that your title included useful keyword that triggered a forum mini-search, with some useful results!

You don't show a location, but two places that can be found in a lot of locations here in the USA are Costco, which has a good overall Printing service, and then for, well, maybe not-so-high quality, but I don't know but the FedEx Kinkos up the street from me offer calendar printing, but I've never used them. When I looked at a sample it didn't look bad though, so if you have one nearby it might be worth checking in to!

If you have a Mac then iphoto lets you design pretty nice calendars which you can then upload to the Apple store, it costs about $30 including postage.

If you don't have a Mac then Lulu, primarily an online book printing company, also offer a calendar printing service. Their international mailing is/was terrible (I live in Japan) but if you live in the US/Canada it should be no problem.

If you have MicroSoft Publisher or one of several other desktop publishing programs to do the layout then you could use HP Magcloud. Their print quality is excellent and they charge 20 cents per page for 100 lb bond, so a typical calendar layout with full page picture on one page and a month calendar opposite would run 26 pages x 0.20 = $5.20 (12x2 + front and back covers). They print on demand so you can order one copy or as many as you need. You can have everything shipped to one address to be distributed or they will do individual mailings for you. I have been doing a 16 page photo "magazine" and the first class shipping cost is about $1.30 for a single copy and about $3 for five copies. That's the most I have ever ordered at one time but it looks like the cost per issue goes down as the quantity goes up. Other shipping options are available.

Be aware that you will be creating and uploading a BIG file; 16 pages converted to pdf and coded for commercial press and CYMK with fonts embedded runs about 30 MB!

http://magcloud.com

http://www.magcloud.co​m/help

http://www.magcloud.co​m/help/pdfguides

Calender use and fees

Rimmer wrote in post #13136538
If you have MicroSoft Publisher or one of several other desktop publishing programs to do the layout then you could use HP Magcloud. Their print quality is excellent and they charge 20 cents per page for 100 lb bond, so a typical calendar layout with full page picture on one page and a month calendar opposite would run 26 pages x 0.20 = $5.20 (12x2 + front and back covers). They print on demand so you can order one copy or as many as you need. You can have everything shipped to one address to be distributed or they will do individual mailings for you. I have been doing a 16 page photo "magazine" and the first class shipping cost is about $1.30 for a single copy and about $3 for five copies. That's the most I have ever ordered at one time but it looks like the cost per issue goes down as the quantity goes up. Other shipping options are available.

Be aware that you will be creating and uploading a BIG file; 16 pages converted to pdf and coded for commercial press and CYMK with fonts embedded runs about 30 MB!

http://magcloud.com

http://www.magcloud.co​m/help

http://www.magcloud.co​m/help/pdfguides

So, in other words you need an app that can create/write a pdf? 'Course if someone had the "standard" Adobe Acrobat then wouldn't that work?

But I don't think I have anything! I have Office 2000, it has an old version of Front Page, but that's for the Web design, I believe and likely too old!

http://www.vistaprint.​com …=2185812867&GNF​=0&GPLSID=

Another important point about MagCloud: there is a 25% discount for orders of 20 or more copies. That would reduce the cost in my example to $3.90. With print on demand you could order a couple of copies for display, take orders from customers , and then do the bulk order later.

To answer Tony's question, yes, you need something that can generate a pdf, and not just an ordinary pdf, but one that is configured for "commercial press". (Not sure what the differences are, except that my commercial press version is about ten times larger than a "regular" pdf.) I use MS Publisher 2007. Here is a suggested list of software from MagCloud:

* Adobe InDesign
* QuarkXPress
* Microsoft Word (PC)
* Microsoft Word (Mac)
* Apple Pages
* Microsoft Publisher

Thanks everyone!

I actually posted this right after arriving home from Costco. I've been very happy with normal photo prints there but I ordered one calendar and it looks awful. But it looks like I've got plenty of other options to explore now.

You can also try www.shutterfly.com, my wife had some calendars made their and they came out pretty nice, not sure on the price, you'll have to check that.

Couple more options...