When doing some resource planning with colleagues, I noticed that my Outlook 2007 Calendar didn’t show any holidays. For this project, I needed to see US and Canadian holidays, but they were missing. Fortunately, I was able to quickly add these items for the next 4 years.

When doing some resource planning with colleagues, I noticed that my Outlook 2007 Calendar didn’t show any holidays. For this project, I needed to see US and Canadian holidays, but they were missing. Fortunately, I was able to quickly add these items for the next 4 years.

In previous Outlook versions, I remembered seeing holidays. Part of me wanted to joke with my colleagues about these days being cancelled because of the economy but I refrained. It wasn’t the economy; I didn’t enable this feature when I installed the new version. The feature can be handy when you don’t recall holidays such as Canada’s Thanksgiving.

To add holidays to Outlook 2007,

1. From the Tools menu, select Options…

2. On the Preferences tab, click the Calendar Options… button

3. On the Calendar Options dialog, click the Add Holidays… button

4. On the Add Holidays to Calendar dialog, check each location set you would like to add. The dialog also allows for Christian, Islamic and Jewish religious holidays.

5. Click OK.

Once you click OK, Microsoft Outlook imports your checked holidays for the years through 2012. Each calendar item is assigned to the “Holiday” Category and the Location column shows either the country or religion.

Of course, you may have some differences with what Microsoft calls a holiday. I can agree with Groundhog Day, but I’ll pass on Tax Day. You can always delete items that don’t suit your needs or mood.

Using Calendar Search to Find Holidays

If you need to get a quick holiday list, you can type “holiday” into the Calendar search bar to see a list of these events. You can refine the list by using a part of the holiday name from the Subject column such as “independence”. You can also search the Location column. For example, if you imported items from multiple locations, you could enter “holiday united states” or “Thanksgiving Canada” to see a specific country. Case sensitivity isn’t an issue either so don’t worry about using lower case.

Older Versions of Outlook and Holidays

For people who have older versions of Microsoft Outlook, I recommend checking Diane Poremsky’s excellent Outlook Tips site. She’s done an article that covers missing holidays and how to get updated holiday files. And even if you don’t need holiday help, her site has great tips.

Related Holiday Article

• How to Find Bank Holidays & International Holidays