Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar 5-year feed to newer versions of Microsoft Outlook in “overlay” mode. This technique uses Outlook’s “Internet Calendar Subscription” feature which keeps a separate calendar from your primary calendar.

(If you plan to sync Outlook with a BlackBerry, consider using the old-style Outlook CSV instructions instead.)

1. Go to http://www.hebcal.com/hebcal/
2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button
3. Click the Download… button
   
4. Select the Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 option from the Download dialog box
5. Click on the Jewish Calendar YYYY.ics download button
6. You might be prompted to acknowledge that you are opening a hyperlink. You should click Yes.
7. Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or 2010 will start up
8. At the prompt, Add this Internet Calendar to Outlook and subscribe to updates, click Yes.
9. The Internet Calendar opens in side-by-side view in the Outlook Calendar and is added to the Navigation Pane in Calendar view under Other Calendars. The calendar will check periodically for any updates made by the calendar publisher.

For more details, see Add an Internet Calendar Subscription to Outlook from Microsoft’s support site.

Included in the Hebcal Jewish holiday downloads are options to select major holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, etc.), minor holidays (Purim, Chanukah, etc.), special Shabbatot, public fasts (Tish’a B’Av, etc.), Rosh Chodesh, and modern holidays (Yom HaAtzma’ut, etc.).

Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar 5-year feed to older versions of Microsoft Outlook.

First, you’ll need to download an Outlook CSV (Comma-separated values) file from hebcal.com:

1. Go to http://www.hebcal.com/hebcal/
2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button
3. Click the Download… button
   
4. Select the Outlook 97, 98, 2000, 2002, 2003 option from the Download dialog box
5. In the “Select an Outlook CSV file to download” section, click on the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION_usa.csv or the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION_eur.csv link (depending on whether you want USA or European date formats).
6. When prompted, specify a convenient name and location for the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION.csv file in the “Save As” dialogue box. We recommend saving the file on the Desktop

Next, import that file into Outlook:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook
2. Select the File -> Import and Export… menu option
3. Select “Import from another program or file” and click Next
4. Select “Comma Separated Values (Windows)” and click Next
5. Find the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION.csv file you downloaded and select “Do not import duplicate items” and click Next
6. Select Calendar and click Next. This will import your chosen file
7. (optional) Synchronize your Pocket PC or Palm handheld with Outlook

For specific instructions for a particular version of Outlook, please see the “How to Import Text Data” section of one of these articles:

• Outlook 2007, 2003, and 2002
• Outlook 2000
• Outlook 98
• Outlook 97

Included in the Hebcal Jewish holiday downloads are options to select major holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, etc.), minor holidays (Purim, Chanukah, etc.), special Shabbatot, public fasts (Tish’a B’Av, etc.), Rosh Chodesh, and modern holidays (Yom HaAtzma’ut, etc.).

• To remove an Internet Calendar Subscription from side-by-side view, clear the check mark for the calendar in the Navigation Pane.
• To remove the Internet Calendar Subscription from the Navigation Pane, right-click the calendar name, and then click Delete calendar name.
• Internet Calendar Subscriptions can be added, changed, or removed from the Account Settings dialog box. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings, and then click the Internet Calendars tab.

When hebcal exports to CSV format, it puts the text “Jewish Holidays” in the Location field. That is there to make it easy to remove entries from your calendar if you got the wrong settings. For example, if you were using candle-lighting times but entered the wrong zip code, you could follow these instructions to remove all of the incorrect entries:

1. Open your Calendar and on the View menu point to Current View and click Events
2. Click the Location column heading to sort the list of holidays by Location (you should see “Jewish Holidays” in the location field for the holidays that you imported from CSV)
3. Click to select the first holiday you want to delete
4. Hold down SHIFT and click the last holiday you want to delete
5. Press DELETE to remove all the selected holidays from your Calendar

To delete candle-lighting times, use these instructions:

1. Open your Calendar and on the View menu point to Current View and click Active Appointments
2. Do steps 2-5 above

Some users have a mismatch between the date format they are downloading (USA vs. European) and the setting you’re using in your control panel. This usually results in events that were supposed to take place, for example, on September 2nd instead showing up on February 9th (i.e. the date “9/2″ vs. the date “2/9″).

If you downloaded a calendar with the wrong dates for events, follow our delete Hebcal Jewish calendar from Outlook instructions to make it quick and painless to remove the incorrect information.

To find out the root cause of the mismatch, go to “Regional Options” Control Panel and pick “Date”, and compare the date format you’re using. For example:

If it says “M/d/yyyy” like mine does, be sure to download the USA format from hebcal.com. If it says “dd-MMM-yy”, be sure to download European format from hebcal.com.