Share calendars with friends and groups online

One of the best sources of online calendars is iCalshare. Pay a visit to the website and use the links on the left of the page to home in on the relevant category. Once you locate a suitable calendar, right-click on the Subscribe link in the box and select the Copy Shortcut option in Internet Explorer, or Copy Link Location in Firefox.

Now visit the Google Calendar website and locate the ‘Other calendars’ section in the left-hand column. If only the title is visible, click it to expand the entry and then click the Add link before selecting ‘Add by URL’. Right-click in the Public Calendar Address box and select Paste from the menu that appears.

If you want to make the calendar publicly available, tick the option box before continuing; otherwise just click the Add button. The calendar can now be viewed simply by clicking the relevant link beneath the ‘Other calendars’ heading to the left of the page with individual events listed on the calendar on the appropriate day. To view all the events included in a particularly calendar at once, click the Agenda tab to the upper right of the calendar grid.

Customise your calendar
As with other calendars in Google Calendar, those added from a source such as iCalshare can be customised. Click the Settings link at the very top of the page and then move to the Calendars section. Click the link for the calendar in the ‘Other calendars’ section and the first thing that can be customised is the calendar’s title ­ simply enter a new name and click the Save button at the bottom of the page. In the Embed This Calendar section is the HTML code to add the calendar to a website or blog ­ a quick and easy way to add the information to a group or club website.

The code can be highlighted, copied and pasted in its default form but its appearance can also be adjusted. Click the ‘Customise the colour, size and other options’ link. Use the tick boxes to indicate the information to be included on the calendar and then choose the default display mode. The next settings let you change the dimensions of an embedded calendar. Use the remaining option to choose which days should be used as the start of the week, and pick a background colour, then click the Update HTML button. Copy and paste the code into a website’s HTML or add it to a blog entry to display the calendar online.