Creating a New Appointment or Event
You can create three similar types of items in the Calendar folder. Appointments have starting and ending times blocked out in your schedule; events, such as vacations and business trips, last 24 hours or more; and meetings are appointments to which you invite other people.
→ To see how Outlook can help you coordinate meetings, see "Planning a Meeting with Outlook".
If you want to add a new item to your personal calendar and you know the date and time of the appointment or event, you can open a new appointment form with those details already filled in. Open or switch to a window displaying the contents of the Calendar folder, and then use any of these techniques:
From any Day view (including multiday views), use the Date Navigator to select the correct date, and then double-click a time slot to open a new appointment. Outlook uses the default appointment interval of 30 minutes. To use a different interval, click and drag the mouse pointer from the start time to the end time, and then right-click and choose New Appointment.
In Week or Month view, select the date of the appointment, and then right-click and choose New Appointment; this creates an appointment with a start time that is the default starting time for the day. If you select multiple dates, Outlook creates a new event on the selected dates, with no start or end times.
To open a new event form from any view, right-click and choose New All Day Event.
You can also create an appointment instantly by dragging an e-mail message from your Inbox and dropping it on the Calendar icon in the Outlook Bar. This shortcut can be a true time-saver when you receive a message that includes essential details about an upcoming event. The subject of the mail message becomes the subject of the appointment, and the message text appears in the Notes area of the appointment form. You'll probably need to adjust the date and time, however, because by default Outlook uses the next available block of time in today's schedule.
If you've looked up a name in your Contacts folder and you want to create an appointment that includes a link to that person, don't just drag the item onto the Calendar icon—that action creates a meeting request addressed to the selected person. Instead, hold down the right mouse button and drag the item from the Contacts folder, drop it on the Calendar icon, and then choose Copy Here As Appointment with Text. If you drag two or more Contact items into the Calendar folder, Outlook assumes you want to include all the information in a single appointment.
To see the maximum amount of information in an appointment you create by dragging and dropping a Contact item, switch to Detailed Address Cards view in your Contacts folder first.
You can create a new appointment from scratch by using any of the following techniques:
Enter a name for the appointment in the Subject field, and then tab from field to field and add more details. Click the Save and Close button when you're finished. Add details about the meeting in the Notes area just below the Reminder field. You can also add attachments here, including files, copies of Outlook items, or shortcuts to files or Outlook items. Figure 11.2 shows a filled-in appointment form.
Figure 11.2. Like most Outlook items, appointments can include file attachments and links to Contacts.
→ To learn how Outlook will fill in times and dates for you, see "Entering Dates and Times Automatically".
→ To learn how to organize Outlook items using categories, see "Assigning Items to Categories".
→ To learn more about instructing Outlook to remind you of important activities, see "Creating Reminders and Flagging Items for Follow-Up".
| Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Subject | Enter the text you want to see in Calendar view. Although you can enter up to 255 characters, you should keep the Subject line much shorter—preferably 30 characters or fewer. Subject lines over about 150 characters will not print correctly in Tri-fold format. |
| Location | Enter a location; the drop-down list lets you choose from among the 10 locations you entered most recently (you can't customize this list or change its order). |
| Start Time, End Time | Enter starting and ending times and dates by using any common date and time format or an AutoDate description; click the arrow to the right of a date or time field to select from a calendar control or a list of preset times. |
| This Is an Online Meeting Using | Check this box to create a link to NetMeeting or other online conferencing software. |
| All Day Event | Checking this box removes the Start Time and End Time fields from the form; when you enter an event, Outlook's default settings show the time in your shared schedule as Free. |
| Reminder | Appointments can pop up reminders at times you define; unless you change the defaults (as described in Chapter 9, "Outlook Essentials" ), Outlook adds a reminder 15 minutes before every appointment. |
| Show Time As | Specify how others view your calendar by designating the time an appointment takes as Busy, Free, Tentative, or Out of Office. Each of these four descriptions uses a different color in Calendar views. You cannot add new descriptions to this list. This option is useful when you use the Delegate option on an Exchange Server; other people can't see details of your schedule, but they at least know whether you're in the office. |
| Label | This option, new in Outlook 2002, lets you color-code appointments using one of 10 labels. You can apply a label manually or use rules to color-code appointments on-the-fly. |
| Contacts | Click this button to link an appointment to one or more items in your Contacts folder. |
| Categories | Assign appointments to categories, just as you do contacts and tasks. See Chapter 9 for a list of standard categories and instructions on how to create new ones of your own. |
| Private | Check to designate an appointment as private so no one who looks at your shared schedule will know that you've gone to the ballgame. Details of private appointments do not appear on shared calendars, although the time is blocked out; when printing, you can choose to hide details of appointments marked Private. |
Entering a Recurring Appointment
Some appointments and events are one-shot deals, but others—like it or not—happen over and over again. When you enter details for a recurring appointment, Outlook manages the entire series from a single appointment form. You can specify recurring patterns on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis. The options for recurring appointments are surprisingly flexible
→ To learn more about setting up recurring tasks, see "Entering Recurring Tasks".
To set up a recurring appointment or event, create the item from scratch or open an existing item, and then click the Recurrence button to display the Appointment Recurrence dialog box (see Figure 11.3).
Figure 11.3. Use this dialog box to schedule even complicated recurring appointments, like this one every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 p.m. for the next 5 weeks or 10 occurrences.
Adjust the options as needed to match the schedule of your event. Enter an ending date or a fixed number of occurrences, if appropriate, and click OK. Then click Save and Close to add the recurring appointment or event to your Calendar folder. Outlook adds a recurrence icon to the left of the event description in all Calendar views.
To edit a recurring appointment or event, open the item. A dialog box lets you specify whether you want to change the entire series or just the selected instance. If your production department moves this week's status meeting from its regular slot of Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., you can change the times for that occurrence without affecting the rest of the items in the series. On the other hand, if a new production manager decides to move the meetings to Monday mornings, you can edit the entire series, and you need to change the details only once to reschedule all future occurrences.
Tip from 
To see a list of all recurring appointments and events (and edit one or more of them, if necessary), switch to Outlook's predefined Recurring Appointments view. Note that this list includes birthdays and anniversaries, which Outlook treats as recurring annual events.
Rescheduling an Appointment or Event
The most labor-intensive way to change the date and time of an appointment or event is by opening the item and manually adjusting the entries in the Start Time and End Time fields. Try these time-saving shortcuts instead:
To change the scheduled starting time for an appointment in any Day view (including multiday views), point to the left border of the item until the pointer turns into a four-headed arrow, and then drag the item to its new time.
To move an item to a different day, point to the left border until the pointer turns into a four-headed arrow; then drag the item and drop it on the selected day in Week or Month view or in the Date Navigator. (If the date you want is not visible in any of these places, you must use the Cut, Copy, and Paste options on the Edit menu instead.)
To copy an item to a new date and time, hold down the Ctrl key and drag the item to the new date by using the Week or Month view or the Date Navigator. This technique is particularly useful when scheduling a follow-up appointment; because copying the appointment item also copies all its details, you eliminate the need to search for your notes from the original meeting when it's time for the follow-up.
Tip from 
If you want to edit the description of an event or appointment, without adjusting its date, time, or details, click its listing in any daily, weekly, or monthly Calendar view and edit the text directly. As soon as you click the text to begin editing, the location (in parentheses after the description text) disappears; the only way to edit location information is to open the form.