Creating your Own Outlook Calendar Files
One useful feature of Outlook is the ability to import custom calendar items from a single file. Typically, this might be Bank / Public Holidays, or perhaps your Pay Dates or School Terms dates. They’re easy to create, and easy to share!
I’m often asked to create such files, for one event or another.
So, rather than just create them, I thought this would be a good opportunity to show you how to do this yourself.
Creating them is very simple, and doesn’t take too long.
To start, open ‘Note Pad’ from your start menu. Goto Fileà Save as. Change the ‘Save as Type’ to ‘All Files’
Immediately save the file as <filename>.hol (note the .hol file extension – it’s important)
At the top of the file, give you set of entries a name enclosed by square brackets:
Then, you need to tell it how many entries you will have (you can add/amend this later)
Now, we need to add a line for each entry we want, and what date it relates to. Dates should be in the format yyyy/mm/dd
Add all the other entries. Your entry can be anything. I usually include the Clocks changing dates in mine.
Once you’re done, double check the number of entries matches the number you put at the top. Then, save you file and close Notepad.
You should be able to then open your file, which will prompt you to add them to Outlook.
And there you have it, holidays added to Outlook, in just the way you like it.
And that’s it! Send it around to your colleagues & friends!
Example: 2013 UK Bank Holidays
Love this – Is there a way to include the field “Show As” Out of Office in this format?
Thank you,
Ronelle Kruger
I have done this in years past with success. However, this year when I open my holiday file, it just opens Notepad. It will not prompt to add to Outlook. I tried emailing it to myself so that I open it from Outlook and it still doesn’t work. Any ideas why I am having this issue?
Most likely you have configured your system (File Explorer) not to show file extensions of know file types, which makes your file look like your_holidays.hol, but in reality it is your_holidays.hol.txt and it opens in Notepad by default. To check/fix this: open Options in File Explorer > View tab > make sure the option “Hide extensions for known file types” is not checked.
I did this last year it worked this year it seems to say “this object does not support this method” any ideas?