Desktop calendar apps are great if you are always at your desk or diligent about syncing with your PDA or phone. But if you like to travel light, consider switching to a calendar you can access from any Internet terminal. Google’s free Google Calendar is one of the most robust choices available. Here’s how to get the most from Gcal’s advanced features.
Choose Your Views
Once you’re logged in to Google Calendar, you can quickly switch between views (such as day, week, or month) by clicking the tabs along the top of the calendar. The agenda view conveniently displays your appointments in chronological order, starting with the present date, without the screen clutter of a day, week, or month view. The tab marked ‘Next 4 Days’ may seem arbitrary, but it’s a gem of a feature, because you can customize the tab to display your preferred time period, from two days to four weeks.
Click Settings in the screen’s upper-right corner (or press S), and scroll down to ‘Custom view’ on the General tab. Then choose an option from the drop-down list and click Save. A cool way to display a relevant stretch of days is to click and swipe over the minicalendar on the left, thereby selecting just the days you want.
Using the keyboard to navigate through your calendar is easy too. Just press D, W, M, X, or A to jump to the day, week, month, custom, or agenda view, respectively. Press N (for “next”) or P (for “previous”) to go forward or backward in time, respectively. (You can also press the J and K keys to accomplish the same things.) Press T to jump to today’s date.
Make a Date
Google Calendar provides a couple of simple ways to add items: One way is to click Quick Add in the upper-left area of the calendar page (or press Q) and start typing. Like a real person, Gcal assumes that words such as “Monday” and “Wednesday” refer to days of the current week, and it adds your new item to the appropriate day. Or just click a day or time in the main calendar and start typing in the box that opens. Google Calendar recognizes most expressions of time (7:00 PM, 7p, and so on), and schedules the associated events accordingly.
Need to reschedule? You can easily change dates and times by dragging and dropping an appointment. If a whole month is visible, dragging changes only the day. But if your view shows a day or week schedule, you can drop on any hour to change the event’s time, too. If you need to cancel an event, click an item once and click Delete to zap it.
Share Alike
By default, only you can see the events on your calendar. But you can make entire calendars—or individual events—public if you like. To change the default setting, click Settings in the upper right (or press S). Choose the Calendars tab. Click the link under Sharing to open the appropriate calendar. Then use the check boxes to instruct Gcal whether to share everything with the whole world or just specific people. To share with specific people only, leave the check boxes empty and use the controls underneath to add the names of the privileged few. When you’re done, click Save.
Seeing Multiple
You may need different calendars for specific purposes—work life and social life, for example. To accommodate such divisions, click Add below the minicalendar on the left. Having multiple calendars lets you customize privacy, sharing, and other settings for each one. You can give the text of each calendar a custom color (use the drop-down menu to the right of the calendar name), or you can use the check box at the left of the name to show or hide events on that calendar. When you have multiple calendars, Google Calendar adds a drop-down list to the New Event pop-up balloon so you can specify which calendar displays the new event. However, if you use Quick Add (press Q) to create an item, the program will add that event to your first (uppermost) calendar.
To move an event from one calendar to another, select (click) the event, and then click edit event details. Choose another calendar from the Calendar drop-down list, and click Save. You can make your calendar automatically display holidays, sporting events, television shows, or other items of special interest to you. Just click Add above your calendar list, and choose Add a public calendar. In the ‘Add a Public Calendar’ page, select a category on the left, and then click Add to Calendar for each one you want to add. You have hundreds of options here, ranging from schedules for your favorite sports teams to concert tour dates.
Want to integrate a Web-based calendar set up in the iCalendar format that Apple’s iCal and Microsoft’s Windows Calendar use? Simply choose Add by URL from the Add menu, and type the desired Web address. If you change your mind, you can hide or delete any calendar from your list. Click Settings on the upper right (or press S) and select the Calendars tab. Click Hide or click the trash-can icon to the far right of the calendar that you want to suppress or zap, respectively.
Events and Invites
With the latest tools for sending invitations built into sites such as Facebook and Google Calendar, you may not need your old eVite account anymore. To invite people to an event in your calendar, simply type their e-mail addresses into the Guest box on the event details page. Click Save, and Gcal will offer to send those people an invitation. If a recipient uses a Gmail account, the event will appear in the invitee’s calendar (as well as in their e-mail Inbox) with a question-mark icon. The recipient can click the event and choose Yes, No, Maybe, or Delete directly in the calendar. To receive notifications about invitations and replies, click the arrow next to the calendar name, and select Notifications from the menu. Use the controls at the bottom to specify e-mail or SMS for notifications.
Choose Your Views
Once you’re logged in to Google Calendar, you can quickly switch between views (such as day, week, or month) by clicking the tabs along the top of the calendar. The agenda view conveniently displays your appointments in chronological order, starting with the present date, without the screen clutter of a day, week, or month view. The tab marked ‘Next 4 Days’ may seem arbitrary, but it’s a gem of a feature, because you can customize the tab to display your preferred time period, from two days to four weeks.
Click Settings in the screen’s upper-right corner (or press S), and scroll down to ‘Custom view’ on the General tab. Then choose an option from the drop-down list and click Save. A cool way to display a relevant stretch of days is to click and swipe over the minicalendar on the left, thereby selecting just the days you want.
Using the keyboard to navigate through your calendar is easy too. Just press D, W, M, X, or A to jump to the day, week, month, custom, or agenda view, respectively. Press N (for “next”) or P (for “previous”) to go forward or backward in time, respectively. (You can also press the J and K keys to accomplish the same things.) Press T to jump to today’s date.
Make a Date
Google Calendar provides a couple of simple ways to add items: One way is to click Quick Add in the upper-left area of the calendar page (or press Q) and start typing. Like a real person, Gcal assumes that words such as “Monday” and “Wednesday” refer to days of the current week, and it adds your new item to the appropriate day. Or just click a day or time in the main calendar and start typing in the box that opens. Google Calendar recognizes most expressions of time (7:00 PM, 7p, and so on), and schedules the associated events accordingly.
Need to reschedule? You can easily change dates and times by dragging and dropping an appointment. If a whole month is visible, dragging changes only the day. But if your view shows a day or week schedule, you can drop on any hour to change the event’s time, too. If you need to cancel an event, click an item once and click Delete to zap it.
Share Alike
By default, only you can see the events on your calendar. But you can make entire calendars—or individual events—public if you like. To change the default setting, click Settings in the upper right (or press S). Choose the Calendars tab. Click the link under Sharing to open the appropriate calendar. Then use the check boxes to instruct Gcal whether to share everything with the whole world or just specific people. To share with specific people only, leave the check boxes empty and use the controls underneath to add the names of the privileged few. When you’re done, click Save.
Seeing Multiple
You may need different calendars for specific purposes—work life and social life, for example. To accommodate such divisions, click Add below the minicalendar on the left. Having multiple calendars lets you customize privacy, sharing, and other settings for each one. You can give the text of each calendar a custom color (use the drop-down menu to the right of the calendar name), or you can use the check box at the left of the name to show or hide events on that calendar. When you have multiple calendars, Google Calendar adds a drop-down list to the New Event pop-up balloon so you can specify which calendar displays the new event. However, if you use Quick Add (press Q) to create an item, the program will add that event to your first (uppermost) calendar.
To move an event from one calendar to another, select (click) the event, and then click edit event details. Choose another calendar from the Calendar drop-down list, and click Save. You can make your calendar automatically display holidays, sporting events, television shows, or other items of special interest to you. Just click Add above your calendar list, and choose Add a public calendar. In the ‘Add a Public Calendar’ page, select a category on the left, and then click Add to Calendar for each one you want to add. You have hundreds of options here, ranging from schedules for your favorite sports teams to concert tour dates.
Want to integrate a Web-based calendar set up in the iCalendar format that Apple’s iCal and Microsoft’s Windows Calendar use? Simply choose Add by URL from the Add menu, and type the desired Web address. If you change your mind, you can hide or delete any calendar from your list. Click Settings on the upper right (or press S) and select the Calendars tab. Click Hide or click the trash-can icon to the far right of the calendar that you want to suppress or zap, respectively.
Events and Invites
With the latest tools for sending invitations built into sites such as Facebook and Google Calendar, you may not need your old eVite account anymore. To invite people to an event in your calendar, simply type their e-mail addresses into the Guest box on the event details page. Click Save, and Gcal will offer to send those people an invitation. If a recipient uses a Gmail account, the event will appear in the invitee’s calendar (as well as in their e-mail Inbox) with a question-mark icon. The recipient can click the event and choose Yes, No, Maybe, or Delete directly in the calendar. To receive notifications about invitations and replies, click the arrow next to the calendar name, and select Notifications from the menu. Use the controls at the bottom to specify e-mail or SMS for notifications.
Gcal allows you to print and save your calendar, and to embed it in your blog or on other Web sites you post to. Click the print icon (next to the Day, Week, and Month tabs) to print your current view or export it as a PDF. If you’ve designated your calendar as public, you can embed it in another Web site or blog. Click the arrow to the right of your calendar name; choose Calendar settings. Scroll down the page that appears and copy the code next to Embed This Calendar to publish the information on a Web site. Then click the button for the appropriate format (XML, iCal, or HTML) to obtain the address of your calendar for that format. To check your calendar without logging in, use the buttons in the Private Address section to obtain the URL for a read-only version of your calendar.
Going Mobile
If your existing calendar can’t sync with your cell phone or other mobile device, Google Calendar can help. You can use your phone’s text messaging feature to receive reminders of upcoming appointments or to send new ones to Gcal. For those features, you must register your phone with Google Calendar. Click Settings or press S under Calendar Settings, and click the Mobile Setup tab. Next, fill out the information for your country, phone number, and carrier. Then click Send Verification Code. When you receive the code as a text message on your phone, make a note of that number and enter it in the ‘Verification code’ box. Click Finish Setup, and Save.
Once you’ve registered your phone number with Google Calendar, you can use it for common calendar chores. For example, grab information over your phone by sending a text message to 48368 (GVENT). Enter next to get the next scheduled item on your calendar, day to see all the day’s agenda, or nday to view tomorrow’s agenda. If you send something more prosaic, like “Get a haircut at your favorite salon on Tuesday at 11 am,” Google Calendar will create a new event. To receive notifications via SMS, click the arrow next to the calendar name, and choose Notifications. Next to ‘Event reminders’, click Add a reminder to set the default method (pop-up, e-mail, or SMS) and the time to receive reminders. If you want multiple reminders or reminders of multiple kinds, click Add another reminder. Click Save when you’re done.
Keep It All in Sync
Google Calendar can import data from other calendars in the iCal or CSV (comma-separated values) formats. This comes in handy if you plan on migrating your schedule to Google once and forever. But for people who want to use both Outlook and Google Calendar, Google makes a utility that keeps data from both sources in sync with each other. To import data from a calendar, you must first export it to a file. For example, in Apple iCal, select the calendar you want to export and choose File•Export. Then name and save the file. In Yahoo Calendar, click Options on the upper right and then click Import/Export under Management. Click the Export button under ‘Export to Outlook’. Save the file to a desired location.
Outlook users who want to use Google’s syncing utility can download it . Once you have saved and finished downloading the file, run the installer. As part of the installation, the program will instruct you to identify your Google account and password, specify which direction to synchronize info in (or choose both), and state how often the utility should perform that task. You can change the settings by right-clicking the Google Calendar Sync icon in the taskbar
tray and clicking Options.
Google Calendar Sync is an easy way to keep your Outlook and Google calendars always up-to-date with each other. But the tool can synchronize only your default Outlook calendar and your main (first) Google calendar. For many people, that’s enough.
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