Creating a digital planner can feel overwhelming, but I’m here to break it down step by step! Whether you’re new to digital planning or looking to streamline your process, this guide will help you go from idea to finished planner—without the frustration.
If you want to know how to make a digital planner to sell or use, it can be pretty simple. I’m sooo not artistically creative, but I love creating digital planners because I can make them pretty and they help people get their “ish” together.
A digital planner is a digital version of a physical planner. As a planner creator your job is to design something that will help your people do “something” a little more efficiently. That “something” can be anything specific to your audience.
I tend to create planners for students and online entrepreneurs because these are the planners that are used in my house. It’s always easiest to create a good planner when you know the steps the user needs to do in order to be successful.
I want to help you with some basic steps to make a good planner. In the geeky software development world I come from, we call this a workflow. The best part is this basic workflow will help you regardless of the software and templates you choose to use.
So… Let’s cover the steps that make up the who, what, and how of making a digital planner to sell.
But first let’s talk about why to make a digital planner!
Why Make a Digital Planner
If you’ve been creating printable planners, you might be wondering—why switch to digital? 🤔 While both formats help people stay organized, digital planners offer unique advantages that make them a powerful product for personal use and selling online.
📖 Digital Planners vs. Printables: What’s the Difference?
| Feature | Digital Planner | Printable Planner |
|---|---|---|
| Usability | Used on iPads, tablets, or computers | Printed on paper |
| Interactivity | Clickable tabs & hyperlinks for easy navigation | No interactive features |
| Editing | Can be written on with a stylus in apps like GoodNotes | Must be printed and written on manually |
| Customization | Users can duplicate & reuse pages | Requires printing new pages each time |
| Eco-Friendly? | 🌱 Yes – No paper waste | ❌ No – Requires printing |
Key Benefits of Digital Planners
✔ Hyperlinked for Easy Navigation – No more flipping through pages! Clickable tabs make digital planners faster & easier to use.
✔ Reusable & Editable – Instead of printing new pages, users can erase, duplicate, and edit their planners anytime.
✔ Portable & Clutter-Free – A digital planner is always available on a tablet or phone, eliminating the need for carrying a bulky notebook.
✔ Perfect for Online Businesses – Unlike printables, digital planners are higher-value products that sell well on Etsy, Shopify, and personal websites.
If you want to create a full-featured, clickable digital planner, Affinity Publisher is one of the best tools to design and format your planner professionally—without the limitations of printable PDFs.
Next up, let’s talk about your planner format so you can get started!
Choosing Your Planner Format: Portrait vs. Landscape, Hyperlinked vs. Non-Hyperlinked
Before you start designing your digital planner, it’s important to choose a format that fits your audience’s needs. The layout and navigation will affect how easy the planner is to use—and how attractive it is for buyers if you’re selling it.
Portrait vs. Landscape: Which One Should You Choose?
Portrait planners are vertical, just like traditional paper notebooks. Many users feel comfortable with this layout because it’s familiar, making it a great option for daily planners, to-do lists, and journals. However, because most tablets are used in landscape mode, portrait planners can sometimes feel a little cramped when writing.
I like portrait for my meal planners and grocery lists, and my brain dumps. Think about what you like, ask your audience and make informed decisions about the type of layout you want to make.
Landscape planners, on the other hand, are horizontal and designed to take advantage of a tablet’s full screen. They are ideal for weekly layouts, meal planners, and content planning, where users need to see more information at a glance. If you’re designing for GoodNotes or Notability users, landscape mode often provides a better experience.
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re selling digital planners, consider your audience’s habits. GoodNotes and Notability users tend to prefer landscape planners, while users looking for printable-friendly planners might prefer portrait mode.
Hyperlinked vs. Non-Hyperlinked Planners
Hyperlinks are one of the biggest advantages of digital planners. They allow users to jump between sections instantly, making navigation seamless. A planner with clickable tabs, index pages, and quick links gives a premium experience and makes it feel more intuitive to use.
This style of planner also mimics applications and make people feel like they are getting the best of both worlds. They can write in their planner, copy and paste from websites, and they can navigate it like an app.
That said, not every planner needs hyperlinks. If you’re creating a basic journal, undated planner, or simple goal tracker, users may be comfortable manually flipping through the pages. Non-hyperlinked planners are easier to create, require less setup time, and don’t rely on external apps for navigation.
💡 Best Practice: If you want your planner to feel polished and professional, adding hyperlinks and clickable tabs will elevate the user experience and make navigation much faster. I do add hyperlinks to even a basic journal and undated planners.
Which Format is Right for You?
- If you want a traditional journal feel, go with portrait mode.
- If you need more space and an easy-to-read layout, landscape is your best choice.
- If you want a premium, professional planner with seamless navigation, use hyperlinks.
- If you’re creating a basic or undated planner, you can skip hyperlinks and keep it simple.
💡 The best part? You can design all these planner formats in Affinity Publisher—and I’ll show you exactly how in my Affinity Publisher Basics course for Digital Planner Creators!
👉 Next up: Let’s plan your planner pages!
Plan Your Planner Pages
The first step to making a digital planner is to plan out your planner. Planning your planner is all about figuring out what you or your audience needs.
One way I do this is to ask the college students in my house what will help them plan our their schooling and life. I also rely on my 20 years as a professional student… But that is a story for another time.
There are templates that all planner could include. You may want to include monthly, daily, or even weekly planner pages.
Or maybe you need special templates for projects like cleaning the house, managing homework and grades, or even blogging tasks.
You could even add a checklist or form for this special project too!
Best Tools for Creating a Digital Planner
The software to create a digital planner is one area where you can make some monetary decisions.
There are some free tools you can use…
If you have a Mac then you’re in luck because KeyNote is a great tool for making a digital planner and it’s included with your computer.
If you have Microsoft Office, PowerPoint works great on a PC.
A little side note, the Mac version doesn’t work as well so be sure to use Keynote on a Mac.
Another option for smaller planners is the free online tool Canva.com.
I would not recommend using Canva for a full yearly planner.
My favorite tool for creating digital planners is Affinity Publisher. It is an awesome one time fee software, and they have a 6 month free trial! I teach all the basics of the software in my course Affinity Publisher Basics for Digital Planners.
If you’re overwhelmed and don’t know what tool to start with make sure you read up on the different software we do recommend for making a digital planner and the pro’s and cons of each.
Organize Your File System
You don’t hear much about this in other posts. But one of the biggest issues I have had in the past (and still do on occasion) is finding the stupid file.
When you make a digital planner to sell there are A LOT of files. You have the design file, the asset files (Images in the planner), the mockup files, the images to make the mockups, hopefully, a file that tells you what is in your planner, a file with the color codes for your planner, and finally the digital planner you are using or selling.
This is a lot and if you don’t have an organized structure you follow each time. You will lose things. This makes it harder to duplicate or reuse the base work you have started.
The free Digital Planner Creator Quick-Start Toolkit will help you get setup.
Time is money, and you want to be able to reuse these files.
Setting Up Your Digital Planner Size
To make a digital planner you want to choose the page size carefully. Too big and it will make it a challenge to use on an iPad or other tablets and too small means you’re wasting space.
I have experimented with a ton of sizes and the two most versatile sizes are Letter and A4. If you’re considering a printable version of the planner then creating the base templates in your standard printer paper size will save you a ton of time and formatting.
I like to create both a printable and digital version of my planners, so I consider this carefully. But I like the tabloid size for digital planners that I only use on my iPad Pro.
Goodnotes supports a variety of page sizes including:
- Goodnotes Standard
- A7 (iPhone)
- A6
- A5
- A4
- A3
- Letter
- Tabloid
Goodnotes Standard and Letter size are very close to the same size. If you aren’t making a digital planner for iPad and Goodnote, it’s a good idea to research the pages for the different PDF Annotation software you support.
*All the PDF Annotation software also supports Letter and A4 sizes making this a safe size to choose!
Building the Pages of Your Planner
I find it helpful to build each page as a single template and then merge the pages or use the master file in the software to build each page. I do this so that I can reuse the basic template in other planners and it makes duplicating the pages a whole lot easier.
It’s helpful when you know the who, what, why, and how of your planner. Creating a file with a single page for each template is great for creators who plan on creating a bunch of different planners.
But if you plan on a single planner with a lot of different styles, you may choose to create a single file with all your pages. It’s best to start with a template for each page in your planner. And to record the pages you have with their page number.
Regardless of the tool you use make sure you use the templates for any page that repeats. In Affinity Publisher these are called MasterPages.
In KeyNote they are Master Slides and in PowerPoint, they are called Slide Masters.
Regardless of which software you use, the process is pretty much the same. I know this can be confusing, but they are just templates for your repeating pages.
Duplicating Your Pages
Once you have the basic format of your planner you will begin duplicating your pages. But before you duplicate those pages, make sure you have the templates for those repeating pages. This will save you hours when you find that little thing you need to tweak… and that will happen.
You will want to duplicate pages like your monthly, daily, and weekly pages. It sounds more difficult than it is when you use the master pages and an organizer.
Each software can use keystrokes to duplicate the page, so it’s really just a little manual work to duplicate the pages. But it can be done very quickly.
Adding Dates to Your Digital Planner
Adding dates can feel overwhelming!
A basic planner will have 12 months, 365 (or 366) days, and 52 weeks. If you add just the basic dates that is 777 entries into your planner… that is a LOT of typing and place for human error! It’s time to automate adding those dates.
I’m dyslexic, and I hate this manual entry. It might be the programmer in me? So I went on a search for and created a tool that helps make this process a whole lot easier.
You can either type in all the dates and hyperlinks or you can use the data import feature in Affinity Publisher. (Only in Affinity Publisher)…
There is one other tool that can help if you don’t use Affinity Publisher. PDFLinkr adds the dates and the hyperlinks. This is a great tool and Camilla, the developer, is a great lady that goes out of her way to help you use the tool.
I love what this tool does, but I don’t find it easy to use. It’s not the most user friendly tool, so you have to watch her very long videos to use it.
If you lose track of where you are and get frustrated like I do, the data merge might be a better option for you.
I also made a spreadsheet organizer to help you keep track of where you are in the created process.. I created this tool under my other brand (PrintablesBuzz.com). This organizer and workflow will walk you through all the steps to make and sell a digital planner. And it doesn’t matter which software you use to design your planner. The Magical Digital Planner Organizer and Workflow is software agnostic.
Creating Hyperlinks
Remember those 777 dates? Well, you will want to add a lot of hyperlinks to your planner. It’s not just the date in a digital planner… this date is also a hyperlink. So this means there can be at least 1000 hyperlinks.
I don’t tell you this to scare you, I’m just being realistic. But there are easier ways to add hyperlinks.
As of Affinity Publisher 2.0, you can now add the dates and the hyperlinks using data merge. I have Planner Data Wizard that will create all the dates and hyperlinks for you in one spot.
PDFLinkr will also add hyperlinks to any planner, regardless of the software used to create the planner. Just remember my warning above about the user friendlyness of the software.
When you create the hyperlinks you are creating a link to an individual page or slide number. If you do this linking manually make sure to choose the right kind of link. The wrong kind of link will break your links and can add a lot of time to your creation if you decide to move pages around in your planner.
Exporting Your Digital Planner
The next phase to make your digital planner is exporting it as a PDF. Each design tool has a slightly different method of accomplishing this. But a simple Google Search “how to export as a pdf with Software Name” replace Software Name with your software will help you do this process.
There are a couple of things to look out for…
- Make sure you check the box that includes the hyperlinks.
- If your planner PDF export is bigger than 50 MB, you must make that puppy smaller.
Compressing your planner size is a complete post or mini-course all by itself. But there are a few simple tasks you can try to make it smaller.
- Optimize your images before you add them.
- User Master Pages and add images there.
- Compress your planner after you create it.
If you added images to your planner make sure they are on the template page, and that you have compressed the images as small as possible. And you can try PDF compression software to make your PDF file smaller as well. My favorite is SmallPDF.
If you have any issues compressing your PDF or any other step in this process, make sure you join the free Facebook Group “Make A Digital Planner”, I try to answer questions in there.
I walk through this entire process in Affinity Publisher Basics for Digital Planners course if you need help with this in Affinity Publisher.
Digital Planner Sellers Only
If you are making a digital planner to sell there are a few additional steps. I want to share these below.
- Use SEO to help you name your product.
- Name your product
- Export your planner as PNG’s (images)
- Create a Mockup
- Create a long description of your product.
- Create a short description of your product.
- Choose a price based on research
- Add your product to a tracker (I use AirTable for my products)
- Add the new product to your shop.
I understand tech, but it took a while for me to figure out all the moving pieces to quickly make a digital planner. I hope this list helps you make your planner just a little quicker. If you would like an actual checklist to make your digital planner make sure you check out my free digital planner creation checklist.
Ready to design your first of next digital planner with Affinity Publisher?
Learn how to use Affinity Publisher with easy, step-by-step video lessons!
Frequently Asked Questions about Making A Digital Planner
Where do I start making a digital planner?
This post is a great place to start. The are 6 phases to making a good digital planner. I break those down in the linked post. The templates are low content pages, so making the pages is easy. The steps in my posts show you how to put those pages into a cohesive digital planner. 🙂
What do I include in a digital planner?
What goes in the digital planner depends on who the planner is for, but there are 5 digital planner templates every planner needs, and you can read about those right here.
What do I hyperlink in a digital planner?
There are so many things you “could” hyperlink in a digital planner it can be challenging to make a strategy for hyperlinking. You really want to consider several things. Check out my post on hyperlinking strategies that will really help your customer get the most out your planner.
How do I choose the size of my digital planner?
The page size of your planner can help you sell your planner. Some people really want to use all the space on their device, and I think it makes the planner just look better. Learn about the different sizes and why you might choose them to make an amazing digital planner.
How do I speed up the digital planner making process?
This question is always asked because that first planner feels like it takes forever! You can speed up the process the following ways:
1. Documenting your process
2. Set reusable styles
3. Automate importing dates & hyperlinks
4. Use Commercial Use or PLR Templates
5. Start by creating a printable planner and convert it
Whats the best design tool for a digital planner?
It sounds like an question… but it’s really not. My favorite tool is Affinity Publisher, but there are other software tools you can use too. You can make a digital planner with anything that add’s hyperlinks and exports the document as a PDF. The 5 best free or low cost tools are:
1. Affinity Publisher
2. KeyNote for Macs
3. PowerPoint for Windows
4. Canva (has some major drawbacks)
5. Google Slides (very glitchy)
Can I convert my printable planner to make a digital planner?
Yes! There are really 6 steps to converting a printable planner into a digital planner.
1. Locate your printable planner template that you want to Convert. (CreativeFabrica has some great free and paid ones).
2. Open the template in a design tool (Affinity Publisher or Canva)
3. Add tabs
4. Duplicate the pages you need to duplicate.
5. Add divider pages and a cover
6. Add hyperlinks
Is there an easier way to add dates to my planner?
There are ways to import the dates. Affinity Publisher let’s you import dates and hyperlinks, and PDF-LinkR will add dates to KeyNote files and add hyperlinks.
Share on Pinterest…
Disclaimer: Links on this site maybe affiliates links. This means I may get a commission if you choose to purchase after clicking my link. I only share software, tools and templates that I personally use and love.
