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Overlay Calendars in Outlook 2007 (like Google Calendar does)

Remembering to update a single calendar is tough enough for me, but many people use multiple calendars to keep track of teams or events. But what if you want to view all the items merged together into one calendar, similar to the way Google Calendar does?

The dual-calendar view feature was first introduced in Outlook 2003, but has taken a bunch of steps forward in Outlook 2007 to the point where it's really useful because of the overlay feature.

First you'll need to change to the Calendar view, and then select more than one calendar in the list.

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Now if you hover your mouse over the little arrow icon next to the second calendar you'll notice it says "View in Overlay Mode". Of course you should just click the icon at this point.

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Now your calendars will be overlayed over top of each other, with the current calendar's items visually highlighted. Clicking the icon again would put the calendars side by side again.

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Switching back and forth between the tabs will visually highlight the items for that calendar. Additionally, you can interact with the grayed items from the other calendars while still in the "merged" view.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 09/19/07 and tagged with: Microsoft Office

Comments (7)

  1. Vinylkemist

    ow is this possible in Outlook 2003? It can be accomplished with Categories in a single calendar, but as far as overlaying multiple calendars, I don't believe its possible in 2003. Side by side definitely, but overlaying???

  2. Brian

    definitely would like to know how it's done in Outlook 2003!

  3. Ryan Cromwell

    I'm looking all through 2003 to figure this out? Where is the feature in 2003?

  4. The Geek

    You can view calendars side-by-side in Outlook 2003, and 2007 adds the overlay feature.

    Sorry for the confusion… I wasn't quite clear enough. Guess I should start sleeping =)

  5. IAN

    Any idea how to change the color of each calendar? I selected three of my calendars and the first and third calendar are the same color (same as your first one above). The second calendar is green like your second one above.

  6. Daniel Fountain

    Can you do this with a public calender? I cant see how?

  7. Lizzi

    When I change the color of the default calendar, all the others change too. And it doesn't appear to support customizing individual calendar colors beyond the default. Any one find a way around that?


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