The invention relates to a method for controlling a surface quality variable (300) in one or more fiber webs (3) in a shoe calender (1) comprising one or more calender nips. In each calender nip of the shoe calender, the overall loading pressure of the shoe element (8) and the loading pressure difference between the leading edge (8′) and the trailing edge (8″) of the shoe element are controlled so as to achieve minimum difference between the determined values (300″) for the surface quality variables of the fiber web and the set values (300′) for the same quality variables after the shoe calender.