It can be very frustrating to spend a great deal of time on your lesson plans and find out when you go to print that it will not fit on one page.  We hope that these tips will help in most cases, butt here will be times when there is just too much text to possibly fit and nothing will work except for shortening your plans.

Reorganize Your Plans

Since your planbook is printed as a grid the height of each row is determined by the tallest box in the row.  If one box has a lot of text it will push down the whole row.  Sometimes it is possible to move some of that text to a different row which can help distribute your plans better and allow them to fit on one page.

Split Your Plans

When you go to the print screen there are two set of options.  The first prints your entire week at once.  Below that is an option to split your week.  This will split your lesson plans into a left and right side.  Depending on how you have your planbook setup the left side will either be the first half of your days (generally Mon to Wed) or the first half of your periods(1 to 4 if you have 8 periods).  Likewise the right side will have the remainder of the week.

Print From Browser - Page Break

When printing from the browser it is very difficult for us to control the final result.  It is not possible for PlanbookEdu to control the margins or page breaks.  One thing we can do to help is show you an estimated page break.  It appears as a red line on the screen, but will not show when printed.

Print From Browser - Shrink To Fit

When printing from the browser it can often be helpful to view the print preview first.  This is generally available under File -> Print Preview.  For Safari this option is available in the standard print dialog (File -> Print).  Using this will give you a more accurate view of what your printout will look like. 

An important option provided by many browsers is the Scale setting.  It looks different for each browser.

Internet Explorer 8

Firefox 3.6

Safari

Although it is tempting to select the Shrink To Fit setting that is available in Internet Explorer and Firefox, this probably won't help you much.  What it's doing is shrinking the width to fit and allowing long pages to spill over. 

Instead, try setting various percentages to see if your planbook will fit on one page without being too small to read.  This works best if your plans are only slightly longer then one page.

Print From Browser - Margins

Most browser provide the ability to change the top and bottom margins.  Usually this is found in the Page Setup menu.  The defaults are between .5 and .75 inches each for the top, bottom and each side.  By changing these it's possible to get an extra inch or more onto each page.

Internet Explorer 8

Firefox 3.6

Print From Word

Exporting your planbook to Microsoft Word before printing allows you to greater flexibility for shrinking the text.  You can manually re-size the text by first typing ctrl-A (or cmd-A on Mac) to select all the text.  Then ctrl-[ (cmd-]) to shrink all the text. If you shrink the text too small simply hit ctrl-] (cmd-]) to enlarge it.

More recent version of MS Word also provide a "Shrink One Page" option that will try to remove one page from your printout.  If your plans are spilling over onto a second page this can help get them down to one page.  You can access this by going to print preview, then clicking the Shrink One Page button.  Unfortunately, this doesn't work all the time.  If there is just too much text you will get the message "After several attempts, Word was unable to shrink the document by one page."

When using PlanbookEdu there are two ways to edit your plans.  The first is obvious - clicking the "edit" link in the box which opens a new window.  The second method is to use our quick edit feature.  To quick edit a box simply double click in it.

The box will now become editable allowing you to quickly change the contents.

What's Missing in Quick Edit Mode

When using quick edit mode there isn't as much as space, so we had to limit the options that are available.  First there is no option to set the entry to repeat.  All quick edits are "one time" entries.  Even if you are editing a "daily" or "weekly" entry it will automatically become a "one time" entry.  This is great if you are working with a lesson plan template.

Also missing is the ability to set the Commor Core Standards or attach files.  If you need to set these options you'll need to click the "edit" link to get the full edit window.

Many At Once

You can quick edit many entries at once, which is great for when you're deep in a lesson planning zone.  Just make sure to click "Save" on all of them before you leave the page!

One of the great advantages of using an online planbook, such as PlanbookEdu, is the ability to set up your general schedule once and then add details for each week.  With PlanbookEdu we make this very easy to do. 

Creating A Lesson Plan Template

After creating your planbook, go to the first week of plans.  Your planbook will be blank at this point.  Begin filling in your schedule by clicking the "edit" link for each box. 

You want to enter in the general information for that period, such as the times and subject.  We don't have specific fields for these; rather we give you the tools to format the box however you like.  You can bold, italicize or underline the text and add a background color to differentiate subjects.  It's completely up to you.

Repeating The Entry

Now that you have the general template for the period, you want to set it to repeat.  By default all entries are "one time" entries.  You can change the entry to appear "daily" or "weekly".

Daily entries also allow you set if the entry should appear just this week or for all weeks.

Weekly entries can be set for all week or just going forward.  The going forward option is useful if the template needs to change midway through the year. Simply edit the box, adjust the template and set to as "weekly, going forward".  This will allow you to have one template for everything before a certain date and a different one for everything after.

Adding Details

Once you have your template setup you'll want to add your lesson plans for just that block for a single week.  There are two ways to do this.  The first is to click the "edit" link and change the entry to appear "once".  Any changes you make will be applied to just that block and leave your template for all the other weeks.

Quick Edit

The second option is to use the quick edit.  To enter quick edit mode simply double click on any of the boxes.

Any changes saved from the quick edit mode will be applied to just the box.  It's the same as clicking "edit" and changing the repeat option to "once".

We try to make PlanbookEdu an easy and intuitive user experience, but we realize there can be a learning curve.  This post will help new users get the most of our service.

Creating Your First Planbook

After registering you will be brought to a screen for creating your first planbook.  A planbook will hold your lesson plans for a set period of time, usually one school year, but it could be a semester or session depending on how your school operates.  When it is time to start your next school year you will create a new planbook with the option of copying this planbook forward.

There are many options for what your planbook should look like such as how many periods are in a day and whether to include the Common Core Standards.  Each of the options has help text next to it to explain its purpose.  If any of the fields are unclear leave a comment on this post and we'll update this post to better explain it. 

Feel free to experiment with this options.  You can go back at any time and change them.

The Monthly View

After saving your planbook you'll be brought to the monthly view.  It shows a calendar of all the dates in your planbook.  You can click on any week in the calendar to go to that week or click on the calendar icon () next to your planbook name to jump to the current week (if today's day is your planbook).

Creating Your First Plan

You should now be looking at the weekly view. 

To start creating plans click on the "edit" link for any of the boxes.  A new window will open letting you enter your plans, attach files, and set the Core Standards (if enabled).  For more information on the "This entry should appear..." option check out our post on creating a template.