Error in downloading customized Outlook.HOL file

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Kathie - 02 Feb 2007 15:27 GMT

I have added our academic calendar to my Outlook.HOL file in the format
specified on the Microsoft site:
event comma space yy/mm/dd carriagereturn

When I try to upload the new Outlook.hol file I get the following error
message:
"The holiday file contains errors or is not in the correct format.
Someholidays might not have been added to your calendar."

I thought the error could be leaving the space after the comma, so I edited
the outlook.hol file to remove the space so they now read:
event comma yyyy/mm/dd carriagereturn

I get the same error message. Do the events have to follow a certain
syntax, ie no punctuation - no commas, periods, slashes, hyphens? It doesn't
say so on the Microsoft site but I'm wondering if that's what is the problem.

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Brian Tillman - 02 Feb 2007 17:29 GMT

> I have added our academic calendar to my Outlook.HOL file in the
> format specified on the Microsoft site:
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> "The holiday file contains errors or is not in the correct format.
> Someholidays might not have been added to your calendar."

Looking a a Microsoft-supplied holiday file, it looks to me that the holiday
file must have a category enclosed in brackets, a space, and the number of
holidays in the list, then the events themselves in the form of event name,
comma, date, with the year being four digits, like this:

[My Holidays] 3
Brian's Birthday,2007/2/2
It's Saturday,2007/2/3
Let's Go To Church,2007/2/4

Double-clicking on a file containing the above causes a prompt containing
"My Holidays" with a check box to the left. Checking the box and clicking
OK adds the three dates.

Signature

Brian Tillman

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Kathie - 02 Feb 2007 17:39 GMT

I have determined that it must not like punctuation like commas or slashes in
the event names so I removed those. I have put in the four-digit year and
everything else in the correct format and just tried to upload again and
voila! it worked! It would be good for Microsoft to include these cautions
in their directions... it would have saved me a lot of time!
Thank you for your reply.

> > I have added our academic calendar to my Outlook.HOL file in the
> > format specified on the Microsoft site:
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> "My Holidays" with a check box to the left. Checking the box and clicking
> OK adds the three dates.

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