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How to Hyperlink to Appointments (icals)

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› Outlook › Calendar › How to Hyperlink to Appointments (icals)

Last reviewed on April 27, 2016     10 Comments

A frequently asked question is

"How do I provide a link for someone to click to add an appointment to their calendar?"

The answer: save the appointment as an *ics file and upload it to a web server then link to it like you would any other file on the internet. You can use the same method to provide a full calendar if you use Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010.

Hyperlink styles you can use in email or on a web page

Visible hyperlink

To insert a visible hyperlink: https://www.slipstick.com/files/AddAppttoCalendar.ics you'll use HTML code similar to the following sample. This can be inserted into an email message by simply pasting the url and pressing enter to hyperlink it.

<a href="../files/AddAppttoCalendar.ics"> //www.slipstick.com/files/AddAppttoCalendar.ics</a>

Pretty Hyperlink

To create a "Pretty" hyperlink: Click Here to Add meeting to calendar, you'll use this format. You can use the Hyperlink button on the Toolbar or Ribbon in Outlook or your HTML editor and paste the url into the address field.

<a href="../files/AddAppttoCalendar.ics"><br />Click Here to Add meeting to calendar</a>

Insert a pretty hyperlink

Hyperlink an Image

Image Hyperlink: (This image is one of the many images compiled in the Outlook exe and dlls, along with icons and other images you see through out Outlook.)

Click to Add to calendar

<a href="../files/lincoln-calendar.ics"><br /><img alt="Click to Add to calendar" src="i/LINCOLN.jpg" width="250" height="239" /></a>

Tip: If you use Outlook 2007 or 2010, you can save an ics containing the Full Calendar  (or multiple days or weeks), not individual appointments.

Why did I choose the picture of Lincoln for this example? Because the picture was included in OUTLLIBR.DLL from Outlook 97 through Outlook 2010. I have no idea why it was included in the resource library dll, but I found it using a bitmap extractor to extract all icons and images from the Office files. It definitely was the most unexpected image in the suite.

How to Hyperlink to Appointments (icals) was last modified: April 27th, 2016 by Diane Poremsky
Post Views: 3

Related Posts:

  • Disable the Unsafe Hyperlink Warning when Opening Attachments
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  • Meeting Location Warning Message

About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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Darlene
July 17, 2019 3:20 pm

what is the HTML code to add a link to create a new appointment in the user's outlook at the bottom of the email body? Without creating an .ics file.

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TychaBrahe
April 27, 2016 1:39 pm

Is there a way to create an appointment as a clickable link without first creating the appointment in Outlook? I have a list of about 186 dates. Right now they're in a spreadsheet that colors them yellow if the date is less than 90 days away and red if it's less than 30. I want to create Outlook reminders so that I'm not constantly scanning this file looking for red flags. Obviously i don't want to create 186 appointments by hand.

If I wanted to create an e-mail as a link, I could enter the code

Send Mail

I can create hyperlinks to do this in Excel as

="Send Mail"

assuming that my two e-mail addresses are in A4 and B4.

Is there a way to construct a similar link to create a calendar entry?

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  TychaBrahe
April 27, 2016 5:26 pm

It could be possible to use an Excel macro to write an ics on the fly... but it would be messy. I'd probably do a macro that looked for upcoming dates and created the outlook appointments. This is an Excel macro - https://www.slipstick.com/developer/create-appointments-spreadsheet-data/
Assuming you are adding them to your default calendar try this edit on the macro on that page - i think the IF statement will work to get just 30 days.
'this assumes there is a value in col 1. Change 1 to 2 if needed. you could put a value in 1 if importing then sort so they are all together.
Do Until Trim(Cells(i, 1).Value) = ""
Set subFolder = CalFolder
if Cells(i, 6) => date and Cells(i, 6) < date + 31 then ' create appt loop End if

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Jim James
January 14, 2014 12:22 pm

Kind of an odd and offensive photo choice, don't you think?

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Diane Poremsky
Reply to  Jim James
January 14, 2014 12:45 pm

I never really thought about it. I used it because it was included in Outlook 97 - 2010, in OUTLLIBR.DLL as LINCOLN.JPG. It looks like it was removed from Outlook 2013. I have no idea why it was in Outlook.

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TychaBrahe
Reply to  Diane Poremsky
April 27, 2016 1:15 pm

You should make it a link to either the anniversary of Lincoln's death.

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Diane Poremsky
Author
Reply to  TychaBrahe
April 27, 2016 5:12 pm

Lol. (You knew I'd do it, right? :))

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karthi keyan
December 31, 2013 5:48 am

Thank you, it's working.
But, it asking "Do you want to open or save Calendar.ics" how to avoid this?
How to open directly without asking questions?

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Diane Poremsky
Reply to  karthi keyan
January 2, 2014 2:29 am

You can't control how it works for other people, but you may be able to disable the warning when you open an ics file.

If the box is grayed out to 'don't ask', restart outlook using run as administrator and try opening the link - the check box should be enabled. https://www.slipstick.com/problems/disable-always-ask-before-opening-dialog/

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Joan
August 13, 2013 11:52 am

Thank you so much, this worked like a charm!

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