Calendar Block

A Calendar Block is a small date field you drop into a scene to mark when it happens (a single moment, or a stretch of time from one date to another). It's how you tell readers (and yourself) that this scene takes place on Tuesday, September 5th, 2026 at 2:30 PM, or on Day 47 of the voyage, or, if you've built a fantasy calendar, on a date like “Stormwane, Year of the Falling Star” in your invented world.

The block adapts to whatever calendar your book is using. The same Calendar Block becomes a real-world date picker, a numeric "Day X" input, or a custom-calendar grid, depending on which mode you've chosen for the book. This article covers using the block on a scene; the calendar itself (modes (required), months / weekdays / eras / moons (all optional)) is configured separately.

To add a Calendar Block to a scene, see Customizing Chapter Layout. To choose your book's calendar mode and define its rules, see Calendar Settings.

Three Modes, One Block

A Calendar Block reads from your book's calendar mode and shows the matching editor. You don't pick the mode on the block itself; it just follows whatever you set in Calendar Settings.

Gregorian

The real-world calendar. The block opens a grid picker with month and year controls at the top, weekday headers, and a 7-column grid of day cells. Click a day to select it. Use the < and > arrows to step a month at a time, the month name to jump months, or the year input to type a year directly. Today's date has a colored ring around it when it's visible in the current month.

For historical fiction, you can turn on Epochs (the BCE/CE-style era markers used in historical or fantasy books) in Calendar Settings: once enabled, a Before/After dropdown appears next to the year so you can pick BCE/CE (or BC/AD) without typing negative years. Penpoint follows the historian convention and skips year 0, so 1 BCE and 1 CE sit side by side.

Day Counter

Just a number. The block shows a single field where you type the day: "0", "47", "-12" for a flashback. No months, no weekdays, no calendar grid. Useful when only the passage of time matters, like survival stories or ship logs.

Negative numbers are allowed: the editor reminds you of this with a hint right next to the field: Note: Negative values are allowed, like when using flashbacks.

Custom

For invented calendars, the block uses a grid picker that respects your custom calendar setup: your own weekday names, month names, hours per day (yes, your fantasy world can have 30-hour days), leap days, and intercalary periods (extra days that don't belong to any week, like a 5-day festival between months). Navigation, selection, and time entry work the same as the Gregorian grid; the structure underneath just matches the calendar you designed.

Leap days show up differently to ordinary days. Because a leap day sits between two numbered days rather than being one of them, it takes its slot in the grid as a small star (⟡) instead of a number. Every star on screen is named in the Leap days in view line underneath the grid, so you never have to hover one to find out what it is. If a star belongs to the month either side of the one you're looking at, its name says so: "Stargazing Night (from Emberwane)".

If your book uses named eras (set up in Calendar Settings, like "Reign of King Valdris"), a dropdown labeled Era: appears at the top of the picker, above the month and year. Click it to jump to a different era; Penpoint takes you to the start of that era so you can pick a date inside it. The year box shows up as "Year 3" instead of "Year 1503", counting from the start of the era, not the beginning of your whole calendar, so you don't have to do the math in your head.

Building a custom calendar (month names, weekdays, leap days, eras) is a worldbuilding job in its own right. See Custom Calendar for the full walkthrough.

Single Date or Date Range

By default a Calendar Block stores one date: the scene's start. If a scene spans more than one moment (a long carriage ride, a festival, an overnight watch), click + Add End Date at the bottom of the editor to add an end date. Two tabs appear at the top of the editor: Start and End, and Penpoint moves you to the End tab. It copies your Start date into the End for you, so you only change what's actually different.

To go back to a single date, switch to the End tab and click Remove End Date (or just click it from the Start tab; it's available either way). The end date is dropped, and the block returns to single-date mode.

Time

Below the date grid is an optional time row with hour and minute selectors. Pick an hour, pick a minute, and the time appears next to the date in View Mode (Edit Mode is what you see when you've clicked into the block to change it; View Mode is how the date appears once you click away). Leave it blank and only the date shows. Time is set on each individual block, so you can have date-only blocks for whole-day scenes and date-plus-time blocks for moment-specific ones.

If you'd rather hide the time row entirely on a particular block, the per-block configuration has a switch for that: Include hours and minutes, covered below.

Clearing a Date

Once a date is set, a Clear All button appears in the bottom of the editor. Clear All only empties the date fields on this one block; your scene, prose, and other blocks aren't touched. If you click Clear All by accident, just pick the date again. Penpoint doesn't remember that the field was empty. Clicking Clear All wipes both Start and End in one step and returns the block to its empty state.

Moons

If your book's calendar has moons configured, every Calendar Block shows the moon phase for the selected date below the editor, and the same phase appears below the date in View Mode. So if your scene takes place on the night of the full moon, the block tells you (and your readers, if you reference moons in prose).

Moons are defined in Calendar Settings: name, orbit, starting phase, and color or surface image. Once they exist, they show up automatically on every Calendar Block.

Per-Block Configuration

Every Calendar Block has its own visual settings, separate from the book-wide calendar rules. Open a Calendar Block's configuration from the Customizing Chapter Layout flow to find these options:

• Show calendar grid picker (Gregorian only): Switches between the grid picker (the calendar-style day picker, with month and year controls at the top and a 7-column grid of day cells) and a dropdown editor with separate Year, Month, and Day fields. The grid is faster for browsing; the dropdowns are quicker if you already know the exact date and just want to type it. Custom mode always uses the grid; Day Counter has no grid concept.
• Include hours and minutes: When off, the time row disappears from the editor and the time portion is hidden from View Mode. Penpoint remembers the time you'd typed, so when you turn it back on, your time comes back.
• Use 24-hour time (Gregorian only): When on, hours show as "00" through "23"; when off, "12 AM" through "11 PM". Custom calendars don't use AM/PM, since the number of hours in a day is up to you.
• Show day before month: Switches the date display from "September 3" to "3 September" (common in European date formats). Available on Gregorian and Custom; not relevant for Day Counter.

Moon Options

When your book has moons defined, three more options appear in the per-block configuration:

• Show moons on this block: Hides moon phases on this specific block, even if the book is showing moons everywhere else. Useful for blocks where the moon phase isn't relevant to the scene.
• Show names and phase labels: When on, each moon shows its name and current phase next to its picture. When off, only the moon picture appears, and the name and phase are visible on hover.
• Size: Pick Small, Medium, or Large for the moon icons on this block.

A Word About Switching Calendar Modes