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Adding Holidays to the Outlook Calendar

One of the great tools all MS Outlook (2003 or 2007) users find very useful is the ability to add holidays and lists of calendar events to their Outlook calendar. This tip will cover how to add MS Office holidays, UW Colleges Academic Events, and how to create custom event lists that can be added to Outlook.

Remember, if you have ideas for the Computing Tip of the Week, please send them to Pat Fellows.

Reminder - The new UW Colleges/UW Extension training web site is located at: http://www.uwex.uwc.edu/it/instruct-support/training.cfm . There users will find links to many useful Office 2007 training documents, videos, and web sites. We encourage you to check out this site first when you have questions about Office 2007.

Adding Holidays

1. Begin on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Calendar Options.
   
   
   
   
2. Next, under Calendar Options, click Add Holidays.
   
   
   
   
   
3. By default, no holidays are loaded. If holidays such as Labor Day, Columbus Day, etc. are not on a users calendar in Outlook, then select US Holidays by putting a check in the checkbox. Users might also chose to add holidays relevant to their country of origin or ethnicity.
   
   
   
   
4. Once all the locations are selected, click on the OK button. Next a dialog box will open confirming the user does want to add the holidays. Click on the Yes button.
   
   

Adding UW Colleges Academic Calendar Events

Go to http://www.uwc.edu/it/outlookcalendar/ and follow the instructions on this site.

Creating Custom Calendar Lists for Import into Outlook

1. Go to http://www.uwc.edu/it/outlookcalendar/ and right click on the UW Colleges 2007 - 2008 Academic Events link.
2. Select Save Target As..
   
   
   
   
3. When the dialog box comes up asking where to save the file, save it to the desktop so it is easily found.
4. Here is what the file looks like when it is opened with Notepad.
   
   
   
   
5. The first line of the file has the title of the Holidays in brackets - [ ]
6. The last number on the first line is the number of dates in the list, in this case, 40.
7. Finally, each event or holiday is listed "title of event or holiday" followed by a comma "Halloween," followed by a space and then followed by the date in the following format - year/month/date, for example, 2008/10/31.
8. Once a new file is created in notepad, chose File, Save As. Name the file with .HOL as the extension. Example: UWColleges0809.HOL.
9. This format can then be shared with anyone. To load it into Outlook, double-click on the file. The Holidays dialog box will open with the custom holiday listed. Put a check in the checkbox and click on OK. The dates are then added to Outlook
   
   
   
   
10. The file can be emailed to users or posted on a web site.

There are many other calendar tips that can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/, Microsoft Office Online. Search for Calendar and many other useful ideas will be listed.

As always, suggestions are welcomed and Computing Tips are appreciated. Send them to Pat Fellows.