Desk calendars are compared on page size and price. Neither tells you whether the thing will survive a year on a real desk.

How much desk does it take?

Ask for the footprint as an area, open and in use, not the size of the sheet.

An easel borrows vertical space. A pad takes the surface and must earn it.

Which format suits the desk?

Scarce surface: easel. People write on the desk anyway: pad.

Desk cleared every evening: fold-flat compact, with no adhesive or fixings.

Will it stand up all year?

A scored back panel holds its lean angle. A creased one relaxes in weeks.

Ask for the lean angle and the base depth as stated numbers.

Can it be read from a chair?

It is seen at roughly thirty degrees down, which foreshortens a flat grid hard.

Type must be set larger than a flat proof suggests, and proofed at the real angle.

Then choose the design

Enjoyable, and safely secondary to the four above.