Organize Outlook, Organize Your Life Scheduling Secrets of Outlook's Calendar Helen Bradley
Wed 8/14/02 -- Time was, when a friend called to schedule lunch for a week from Friday, I had to launch Microsoft Outlook's calendar and click the "Go to Today" button to check the date so I could calculate forward to see just which day we were talking about. Then I found a way to make Outlook do the work (I'm lazy and I'm the first to admit it) -- and in this week's tips, I'll not only show you how to have Outlook calculate dates for you, but a slew of other ways you can get its calendar to do more, so you do less.
You do the math. Outlook will flip the calendar to any date if you tell it display a calendar for any date you specify -- or, better yet, just describe, such as a week from Tuesday. To see how this works, choose View/Go To/Go To Date (or press Control-G) and type Friday week to pick a date one week from next Friday. You can also type Wed 3 weeks to jump to three weeks from Wednesday, Today 52 weeks to move forward a year from Today, and so on.
View days your way. When you're more interested in, say, the next three Fridays than any other Calendar view, switch to 1-, 5-, or 7-Day (Day, Work Week, or Week) view -- the one-day view works best. Now click the first date you want to check in the Date Navigator, then press the Ctrl key while you click other dates (e.g., the next three Fridays). As you click, the calendars for the selected days appear side by side in the main display.
Customize the Calendar. There are plenty of ways to put your own mark on your calendar -- changing its colors or your office hours, or even setting up a nonstandard work week if you work Sunday to Thursday. Choose Tools/Options, the Preferences tab, and click the Calendar Options button. Here you can make your choices, clicking OK when you're finished.
The Preferences tab also lets you specify a default reminder-alarm time (say, 15 minutes before an appointment). To set the alarm's tone, choose Tools/Options, the Other tab, Advanced Options, and Reminder Options and you customize the sound that plays when a reminder dialog appears.
Spanning the globe. If you work on the East Coast for a California-based company, you'll be interested in both time zones; if you work for a firm with offices in other countries, you'll need to be familiar with both world time zones and other countries' holidays. Outlook's calendar can track both.
To add a second time zone, choose Tools/Options, the Preferences tab, Calendar Options, and click the Time Zone button. Enable the "Show an additional time zone" checkbox, type a description of it (such as Head Office or U.K. in the Label box), and choose the zone to add. It's also a good idea to assign a label to your current time zone at the top of this dialog box. When set up, the two zones appear in your calendar view, labeled appropriately.
To add holidays for another country, revisit Calendar Options, click the Add Holidays button, check the countries to add, and click OK. Don't select any country's holidays you've already entered in your calendar, or they'll be listed twice.
Printing and sharing calendars. Want to print a blank calendar to fill in with pen or pencil? No need to delete all of your appointments -- just create a new, empty calendar and print that. Choose File/New/Folder and name the folder Blank Calendar. From the "Folder contains:" list, choose "Appointment items," and from the "Select where to place the folder:" list, choose Calendar. Click OK. Select this Blank Calendar in the Folder list and choose File/Page Setup. Select the Style to use and the other options and click Print.
You can also, of course, print your usual, filled calendar using the same process -- and share your calendar by publishing it on the Web. To do the latter, choose your calendar in the Folder view and choose File/Save as Web Page. Set the start and end date and select the other options from the dialog. The calendar title becomes the page title, and the word Calendar appears in the browser title bar. You can save the resulting HTML file to your hard disk, or to a Web server or shared network folder, and open it in your Web browser to view it.
Remember birthdays and anniversaries. You'll never be in the doghouse for forgetting an anniversary again if you use Outlook 2002's contact tools. Add your spouse, family member, or friend as a Contact; in the Details tab of his or her Contact entry, check and complete the Birthday or Anniversary entry or both. These become all-day entries in your calendar for years to come.
You can set reminders for birthdays and anniversaries if you open the Contact's entry and choose the General tab. Click the birthday or anniversary link, answer Yes to the prompt to trust the embedded object, and you can now check the Reminder option and set the length of the reminder in the "Recurring event" dialog. If the offered reminder span of 10 hours to two days isn't enough, type your preferred reminder time (say, 14 days) and Outlook will use that.
In addition to birthdays and anniversaries, you can create calendar events to identify other special celebrations. To do this, choose New Appointment and click the "All day event" checkbox. In the Subject line, type the event description (this appears at the top of that day in your calendar, so make it brief and self-explanatory). Click Save and Close.
