Managing Your Personal Calendar in MS Outlook

Outlook's Calendar folder can keep track of any number of appointments and meetings, whether they're one-time-only events or recurring appointments that repeat on a regular schedule. Although you can print a calendar for reference, Outlook's calendaring features are best suited 10 people whose duties keep them close to a computer screen most of the time, or those who have a handheld device (such as a Palm or Pocket PC) that can synchro­nize data from Outlooks Calendar, Task list, and Contacts folder.

Most of the calendaring features available in Outlook 2003 are essentially unchanged from previous versions. If you've been using Outlook 2000, one improvement that was originally introduced in Outlook 2002 is worth noting: you can color-code appointments manually or using automatic rules. If you have an active connec­tion to an Exchange Server, you can also connect to shared calendars belonging to other users on that server.

The default view of the Calendar folder has also changed slightly in Outlook 2003. The contents pane displays appointments for the current day; you can change this view to show multiple days, a full week, or a full month. A calendar control called the Date Navigator emerges at the top of the Navigation pane. As an alternative to this view, you can enable the Taskpad (choose View, Taskpad). In this configuration the Date Navigator which moves to the right of the contents pane, above a short list of tasks.

In the Date Navigator, boldfaced numbers indicate days on which you currently have at least one scheduled appointment or meeting. Click any date (past or future) to quickly show that day's items in the contents pane. Use the left- and right arrows to move backward and for­ward a month at a rime. For long-distance jumps, there's a secret, undocumented shortcut. Click the name of a month above the Date Navigator and hold down the mouse button to see a list that includes the three months before and after the current month. Drag the pointer below or above the list to scroll to any month, and then release the mouse button to jump to that month.

Questionnaire:

• How to Manage Personal Calendar in MS Outlook.