Magazine production schedule template
Plan an issue backwards from the print date. Choose how often you publish, set how many days each stage needs, and get every deadline as a date, from ad sales close to distribution. Print it, open it in Excel or add it to your calendar. No sign-up.
What a production schedule is
A magazine production schedule lists every deadline an issue has to meet before it reaches readers: when ad sales close, when editorial copy and advertiser artwork are due, when layout starts, when proofs go out and come back, and when the files go to the printer. Each date is counted back from the day the issue prints, because that date is fixed by the printer and the distribution plan. Everyone, from sales to design, works to the same dates.
A worked monthly example
Take a monthly magazine that prints on Monday 15 March 2027; enter that print date above to follow along. Ad sales close 24 days before print, on Friday 19 February, so the final ad count is known. Editorial copy is due on Monday 22 February and finished ad material on Friday 26 February. Layout starts on Monday 1 March, proofs go out a week before print on 8 March, and the editor and publisher sign off on Friday 12 March. Files go to the printer the day after, and the issue is distributed and on sale five days after print. Tick the weekend option and the Saturday dates move to the Friday before or the Monday after; files to the printer then fall on the same day as sign-off, so add a day to that stage if you need the gap.
Choose Monthly with three issues and the same pattern repeats for April and May, so you can share a quarter of deadlines at once. Download the .ics file to add every date to Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar. To plan what goes into each issue, its theme, features and special sections, use the magazine editorial calendar template.
Typical stage lengths
There is no single right schedule, and every number in the template can be changed. A common starting point for a monthly title is to close ad sales three to four weeks before print and ask for ad material one to two weeks after that. Layout often takes one to two weeks, depending on page count and how much is ready on time. Allow two to five working days for proofs and corrections, at least a day between sign-off and files to the printer, and ask your printer how long they need before the press date and how long delivery takes. Weekly titles squeeze all of this into a few days; quarterly titles can spread it over six weeks or more. Build in a buffer before print rather than making every stage due on the last day. For more on running the process, read how to organize magazine issue production.
Where a spreadsheet schedule breaks
A schedule in a spreadsheet works while the dates are the only thing that changes. It starts to break once ad materials and page status change every day. The schedule says artwork is due on Friday, but it cannot tell you which of the twenty booked ads have actually sent files, which were cancelled, or which pages are still empty. That information lives in emails and in the ad sales team’s heads, so someone keeps a second sheet, and the two drift apart a week before print.
In RunMags, signed ad bookings arrive in the issue plan ready to place, and editorial and artwork status are shown on each page: see the issue plan and page status in the RunMags flatplan.
