Microsoft’s Outlook Team Blog kicks off a series on making Outlook your main working environment by noting how you can customise the calendar view. Say it’s Thursday and you want to see what’s on for the next seven days: week view is no good because the days are split, but month view may not offer enough detail. The secret is to hold down Ctrl and select the days you want (which don’t even have to be consecutive) in the date picker in the top-left corner. The method isn’t perfect — you can’t pick across multiple months — but it’s a handy way to see just the entries you want. Something not mentioned in the post: there are some less-than-entirely-intuitive keyboard shortcuts for switching between standard calendar views (Ctrl-Alt-1 for day view, Ctrl-Alt-2 for weekday view, Ctrl-Alt-3 for week view, or Ctrl-Alt-4 for month view).
Citizendee
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 at 4:22 PMI can pick across multiple months. I have two months showing in the date picker and dates I CTRL pick from the second month append to the right of the days shown.
Nikki
Thursday, October 30, 2008 at 12:38 PMWow! How simple – yet effective. Thanks for the tip.
And yes to multiple months too – if you have your outlook set to view however many months you want down the “to do” bar.
Frank
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 10:49 AMI want to be able to have my calendar always appear in the month view, not the day, so that i can see my month whenever i turn Outlook on, and also if i look ahead months, I want to see them as well rather than the daily view it currently gives me, how do i set that up?
Tom
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7:40 AMI want to show Sun-Sat view on my outlook calendar. It changed recently to Mon-Sun. Not what I want to see (does anyone use this format?).
How can I get it back to Sun-Sat?
Thank you. Tom
Angus Kidman
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 7:44 AMGo to the Tools menu, choose Options, select the Preferences tab, click on Calendar options, and set First day of week. You can choose any day you like.
(And yes Tom, lots of people use Mon-Sun — indeed, I can’t think of a good _organisational_ reason to use a Sunday start. But it’s precisely because opinions differ that you can change it.)
Tom
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 8:00 AMAngus – thank you for helping out. I love the Internet to help solve little frustrating things like this. Appreciate the reply.
I also just got an iPhone and used Internet blogs to answer many questions there too.
Have a great week (starting on Monday).
Tom
becky
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 3:47 AMHi Angus,
At first glance, I thought Tom and I had the same problem. I tried your trick and nothing happened, even when I tried adding Sat & Sun to the work week. My calendar shows Mon-Fri in full size blocks, then has Sat/Sun as half size blocks on the righthand side. How do I just show a normal, standard 7 day calendar in Outlook where all the days (blocks) are the same size? (I have 2003 if it matters. Our IT guy has 2007 and says his looks how I want mine to.) Thanks for the help!!! =)
becky
Friday, October 29, 2010 at 3:49 AMOh, I forgot to note – I need to see this in a full month view. Looking to print calendar pages out by the month, but want to see all the days the same size – just like a real calendar you would buy. Thanx! =)
DMac
Monday, June 29, 2009 at 11:49 PMSomehow I changed my outlook default settings so that when I open the program I am no longer starting at the calendar. I have to click several options before I can get there. How do I set the preferences to I start out at the calendar?
Angus Kidman
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 6:25 AMTools –> Options –> Advanced, then click on the Browse button next to ‘Startup in this folder’ and choose Calendar.
davidm
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 at 12:10 AMI’m trying to find how I changed my setting in my calendar view to say 2009 07 when they used to say “july 2009″.
How can I change this back?
MSS
Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 4:23 AMGreat tip! Thanks!
TexasZman
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 4:38 AMI recently messed up my Calendar, and it no longer displays the Toolbar that allowed me to select a 1-day/5-day/7-day view. All it displays is a list of appointments for the day. I really prefer seeing the calendar as a 5-day work week. How can I restore this option?
Busy Mom
Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 4:28 PMOk, I have 5 very busy people in my family and I try to keep everyone’s schedules in one place…my outlook calendar so I can sync it to my blackberry. The problem is, when I got to print a month at a time 1/2 of our schedule is cut off. Is there a way to make the boxes larger or add a new print style? Or will I have to print a weekly one to get the details, and a separate monthly one to get an overall look at the month?