14 August 2010

Microsoft Outlook Calendar > Filofax

No I'm not suggesting you all abandon your Filofax diaries and start using MS Outlook instead...  perish the thought...

Actually I have used printed versions of Outlook calendars in my A5 Filofax. If you look at the picture in the header of the blog, that is in fact an Outlook calendar that was printed out in A5 format. It happened because I bought the wrong format diary refill that year!

So why use Outlook. Well there are some small advantages, for instance you could record all your annual reminders in Outlook: Birthdays, Anniversaries etc. And these will then appear on your printed diary.

Another advantage I suppose is you can change formats partly through the year or even if you need a more detailed week you can change for that week even.  You don't have to print a whole year, just the days you need.

Outlook offers a number of different page styles in daily, weekly and monthly formats. It also gives you the option of 1 or 2 page for each of the above. You can add notes areas on the pages as well.  There is a preview facility so before you hit the print button you can see what you are going to get.

I would recommend doing short date ranges first to make sure you have things set the way you want to before you go for broke and print off a whole year, get it wrong and it could work out more expensive on ink/toner and paper.

Printing calendars for an A5 is achieved as I described in an earlier post, you set it to A4 and booklet print it and you will get A5 pages.  Printing A5 from A4 is fairly easy as the pages will match each other on both sides of the paper. Outlook does offer paper size and page size variations. So printing three personal pages on a side of A4 is possible but the alignment of the pages when double sided will depend on the accuracy of the alignment of your printer. My best advice is to experiment on a few sheets first, print them, cut them out, punch them and see how well they fit.

Give it a try you might find the format or layout you have been looking for. I hate to admit this but Outlook offers one of the best variety of calendar styles I have found that you can customise and print out.

Below are a few sample pages printed out.






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3 comments:

  1. I've never used Outlook before, but it was the diyplanner website that got me started on my filofax obsession, since I loved the idea of being able to customize inserts. But I've found myself using commercial inserts for the calendar section since they just look nicer and don't run when damp like inkjet ink does (my only way to get color).

    Does the Outlook in Office 2010 still have these calendaring features, or even more? We're moving to that at work, so maybe it's time I learn it :-)

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  2. I have printed out the monthly view of the Outlook calendar for my personal Filofax and add each current month on top of the calendar section.
    Instructions as follows:
    Open Outlook calendar
    Go to File -> print
    Choose 'monthly style' in print window
    Click on button 'Page set up'
    Chose tab 'paper'
    on right hand side of window choose the page size 'Day-timer senior pocket'
    Perfect solution.

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  3. Gosh, these look great! I wonder how the Mac version of Outlook will work when it comes out later this year!

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