Add custom holidays to your calendar

In this calendar, we used the command in Outlook to add a standard set of holidays based on our location.

But let’s say we want to add our own holidays and important dates, like birthdays, school dates and company holidays.

In Calendar view, go to the Home tab and click New Appointment.

In Subject, type a name for the important date.

We’ll leave the location blank for now.

Check All day event, and enter a date.

Next, go to the Event tab and click Recurrence.

Under Recurrence pattern, click Yearly.

Then, on the right side we want the birthday notice to recur every one year – meaning every year – on December 10th.

Then, under Range of recurrence, let’s start the notices this year, with No end date. Click OK.

You may also want to click the arrow next to Reminder and choose when to receive one. Click Save & Close.

Now as a particular birthday date approaches, you can turn the generic notice into a party invitation if you want.

Double-click the item and select Just this one, and OK.

Add all the details like we did in Movie 1, and click Send.

I added another appointment down here to mark a school holiday.

The difference between this item and other holidays is that it doesn’t have a recurrence because it’s different every year.

After creating your holidays you can add them to the Holiday category.

Go to the View tab, click Change View, and List, and make sure Categories is selected.

Next, press and hold the Ctrl key while you click the appointments and drag them into the Holiday category.

You don’t have to do this, but if all your holidays are together in one category, they’re easier to work with as a group. For example, one thing you can do is add your holidays to another calendar.

Right-click the category heading and click Copy.

Select the other calendar, and press Ctrl+V. And all the holidays are added to it.

So you can add Outlook holidays, and then modify or delete them or create your own holidays and important dates.

Then, you can copy them all to another calendar if you want.

Next check out how to create a holiday iCalendar that you can email or offer as a download.