Printable advent calendar numbers

How it is calculated

In short: this generator puts the numbers 1 to 24 – or up to 25 or 31 – into circles, squares, gift tags, stars, Christmas trees or hearts and lays them out on US Letter or A4. With the defaults (38 mm or about 1.5 in wide, 5 mm spacing, 10 mm margin) all 24 circles fit on one Letter page, 4 × 6. You get a print-ready PDF and a 300 dpi PNG.

How it works

1. Choose a shape. “Mixed” cycles through all six shapes.
2. Pick the numbers: 1–24 to Christmas Eve, 1–25 to Christmas Day or 1–31 for all of December.
3. Set style, color and font: filled with a white number, a colored outline (black for coloring in) or a dashed cut line.
4. Choose the order: in sequence or shuffled; “Shuffle again” deals a new layout.
5. Click “Create PDF” or “Save PNG”, print at actual size (100%), cut out and stick on.

24 or 25 doors – and why shuffled?

The Advent calendar was first used by German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many calendars have one door for each day of December up to and including Christmas Eve (December 24) or Christmas Day (December 25) – that is why you can choose 25 numbers here. Because the First Sunday of Advent falls between November 27 and December 3 (in 2026 it is November 29), many reusable calendars simply begin on December 1. On classic paper calendars the doors are often spread across the picture in no particular order, which is what the “Shuffled” option recreates.

After World War II, the Stuttgart publisher Richard Sellmer aimed at buyers abroad from the start – his very first calendar was already printed in English and Swedish. Demand rose sharply after Newsweek showed a picture of President Eisenhower’s grandson with an Advent calendar in December 1953.

How the layout is calculated

The page minus the margin is divided into equal cells; each shape sits centered in its cell, and only whole shapes are placed. The font size follows from the shape and the digit widths of the standard PDF fonts (Helvetica Bold 0.556, Times Bold 0.5, Courier Bold 0.6 em per digit), so the preview, PNG and PDF match. Examples on Letter: 2-inch shapes (50 mm) give 12 circles per page (3 × 4), so 24 numbers need two pages. Christmas trees are 1.15 times as tall as they are wide, so at 38 mm only 20 fit on a page (4 × 5). For matchboxes, 25 mm (about 1 in) gives 48 circles (6 × 8).

Honest limits

The generator prints shapes and numbers, not pictures or photos. Screen colors differ from print; “gold” is an ochre tone, not metallic ink. The preview uses Arial, Times New Roman or Courier New, which share the digit widths of the PDF fonts. With several pages, “Save PNG” saves one file per page. The small “toolboxday.com” footer can be switched off.

More for the holidays

Design round labels with names using the sticker templates for printing and jar labels with the printable label template maker. See how long is left with how many days until Christmas, and draw names with the Secret Santa generator.

Privacy

The PDF and PNG are created entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded. Only your settings are remembered by the browser.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and legal basis

• Wikipedia – Advent calendar (doors to December 24 or 25, often in no particular order), read 15.10.2026
• Adobe Core14 AFM font metrics via pdf-lib standard-fonts (Helvetica-Bold 556, Times-Bold 500, Courier-Bold 600 per digit)
• ISO 216:2007 – Writing paper and certain classes of printed matter – Trimmed sizes – A and B series (A4 = 210 × 297 mm)
• Wikipedia – Letter (paper size): 8.5 × 11 in = 215.9 × 279.4 mm (ANSI/ASME Y14.1 size A)
• NIST SP 811 – Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (1 in = 25,4 mm exakt)
• Adobe – ISO 32000-1:2008 Document management – Portable document format (PDF 1.7)
• pdf-lib – Andrew Dillon (MIT)

As of: 15 October 2026 · Editorial policy