Setting Up Your Google Calendar

Google Calendar is designed to be easy to use. To that end, Google succeeds.

Setting Up a Basic Calendar

Setting up your first calendar is comically easy. In fact, there's nothing to set up. When you first sign into the Google Calendar page, your calendar is already there, waiting for your input. There's nothing to create, nothing to configure. Can you get any easier than that?

Setting Up Multiple Calendars

One of the key features of Google Calendar is the ability to create and manage multiple calendars. For example, you might want to create one calendar with work events and another with social events.

To create a second (or third or fourth) calendar, follow these steps:

1.	From the main Google Calendar page, click the + button next to My Calendars in the Calendars box.
2.	When the Create New Calendar page appears, as shown in Figure 33.2, give the calendar a name and description, and then enter other appropriate information. Figure 33.2. Creating a new calendar.
3.	Click the Create Calendar button.

As you can see in Figure 33.3, all of the calendars you create are listed in the Calendars box on the left side of the Google Calendars page, under My Calendars. To switch to another calendar, just click its link in this box; you can also view events from multiple calendars on the same page by checking each calendar you wish to view.

Figure 33.3. Viewing all your calendars.

Setting Up Other Types of Calendars

Google Calendar lets you create four different types of calendars:

• Personal calendars, like your default calendar.

• Public calendars, which others can access via the Web. (See the "Creating a Public Calendar" section, later in this chapter, for more information.)

• Friend's calendars, which you import from their Google Calendar web pages. To import a friends' calendar, click the + button next to Other Calendars in the Calendar box, select Friend's Calendars, enter the URL for your friend's calendar page, and then click the Add button.

• Holiday calendars, which add national holidays to a basic calendar. To create a holiday calendar, click the + button next to Other Calendars in the Calendar box, select Holiday Calendars, and then click the Add Calendar button next to the specific calendar you want to add.

All of your nonpersonal calendars are listed in the Other Calendars section of the Calendars box.