My Favorite Outlook Calendar Tips

Here's a set of Outlook Calendar tips for you. Calendar is probably the place you spend your most Outlook time after Mail, so these tips can make a noticeable difference to living with Outlook.

These Outlook Calendar tips run the gamut from using the TaskPad in Calendar for greater personal productivity, to color-coding appointments so you don't miss a romantic lunch date.
There's surely something here you can use:

• Send Calendar info via e-mail (NEW)


• Create an Appointment without touching the mouse


• Fix Daylight Savings Time change problems


• Use the TaskPad to up your efficiency (Outlook 2003)


• See All of the TaskPad (Outlook 2003)


• View non-consecutive days in the Calendar


• Import the holidays today


• Color code your life


• Calendar keyboard shortcuts
  

Use the TaskPad to Up Your Efficiency (Outlook 2003)

Activating the TaskPad

1. Open any Day/Week/Month calendar view.
   
   
2. Click View, then TaskPad. The TaskPad appears on the right side of the Calendar window.
   
   
   
   The TaskPad.
   

You can resize the TaskPad or even hide the Date Navigator by dragging the edges of the TaskPad. And you can control which tasks appear in it using the TaskPad View command in the main View menu.

For more details on working with the TaskPad, search for "TaskPad" in the Outlook help system, or refer to pages 190-192 and 211-212 in "How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003"

See All of the TaskPad (Outlook 2003)

It's not clear to me how this happens, but I can tell you what happened and how to fix it easily. What happened is that somehow the Date Navigator (the section with the multi-month calendar) got expanded to fill the space where the TaskPad tasks should be.

The solution is simple.

1. Point at the bottom of the Date Navigator with the mouse cursor. Move it up and down until the cursor turns into two horizontal bars with up and down arrows. This means you have found the edge of the Date Navigator.


2. Drag the bottom of the Date Navigator upward to reveal as much of the TaskPad tasks as you wish.

Boom. You're done, quick and easy.

Viewing Non-Consecutive Days in the Calendar

1. In the Date Navigator, click the first date you want to display.
   
   
2. Hold down the CTRL key on the keyboard, and click each additional date you want to see in the Calendar.

As you click each date, it appears in the Calendar. Couldn't be easier!

Import the Holidays Today

NOTE: Check to be sure that the holidays you want aren't already in the Calendar, particularly if you are using Outlook at the office. National and company holidays are often added automatically on corporate computers.

Importing Holidays into the Calendar

1. On the main menu, click Tools, then Options. This opens the Options dialog box.
   
   
2. Click Calendar Options to open that dialog box.
   
   
3. Click Add Holidays to open the Add Holidays to Calendar dialog box.
   
   
   
   Add Holidays here.
   
   
4. Select the holiday sets you want to add to the Calendar. You can add as many or as few as you wish at once.
   
   
5. Click OK and after a moment the new holidays appear in the Calendar.

Color Code Your Life (or at least your Calendar)

Ten colors are available for use. Each color also has a label that can be used to describe what the color means, but I suggest you ignore that and just apply the colors you want to your items, regardless of the label.

Adding Color to Existing Calendar Items

1. Right-click the item in the Calendar. This opens a shortcut menu.
   
   
2. Select Label in the menu to see the available colors and their labels.
   
   
3. Click the color you want to apply.

Selecting Colors for New Calendar Items

I think this is my most favorite of all Outlook Calendar tips.

Keyboard Shortcuts to Know

So consider learning any of these keyboard shortcuts that could replace an action you do with the mouse right now.

Shortcut	Action
CTRL-2	Go to Calendar from anywhere in Outlook
ALT-1 to 9	View multiple days, starting with the selected day.
ALT-HYPHEN	Switch to Weeks view from the selected Day/Week/Month view.
CTRL-SHIFT-A	Create a new appointment (when not in a Calendar view)
CTRL-G	Go to a specific date (when in Calendar)

NOTE: When an item in the TaskPad is selected, keyboard shortcuts act as if Outlook is in Tasks rather than in Calendar.

When working in an Appointment or Meeting window in Outlook 2007, the Ribbon comes into play. The following keyboard shortcuts apply when editing an Appointment or a Meeting in Outlook 2007:

Shortcut	Action
ALT, H, I	Turns an Appointment into a Meeting by adding a To box.
ALT, H, C	Changes a Meeting into an Appointment by removing the To box.
ALT, H, U	Shows the Scheduling pane of the window so you can look for an open time for the Meeting or Appointment.
ALT, H, P	Shows the Appointment pane of the window. Gets you out of the Scheduling pane.
ALT, N, A, F or M or A	Attach a File (F), or Item (M) or Business Card (A) to the Appointment.

It's possible to use keyboard shortcuts to work with the Calendar without touching the mouse at all. For example, you can use Keyboard Shortcuts to Create an Appointment by following the instruction on this page.

From here you can:

Return to the Favorite Tips page. Return to the top of this Outlook Calendar Tips page.