How to Add Birthdays to iCal

By Alexia Petrakos

Add Birthdays to iCal Add Birthdays to iCal

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Many of the included applications in Mac OS X are well integrated. You can create movies in iMovie, make a soundtrack for that movie in Garage Band and put them on a DVD with iDVD. The applications iCal and Address Book are no different in terms of how well they communicate. By adding birthdays to your contacts in Address Book and telling iCal to bring them in, you'll never have to remember another birthday again. Here is how to do it.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

  • Apple Computer running Mac OS X
  • A list of your family's and friends' birthdays

Step1
Open "Address Book."
Step2
Select a contact and click the "Edit" button just below that contact's information.
Step3
Click on "Card" from the top menu, go down to "Add Field" and select "Birthday."
Step4
Enter that contact's birthday in MM/DD/YYYY format. You can either type in the numbers or use the up and down arrow keys to change the date.
Step5
Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for each contact.
Step6
Open iCal when you're done adding birthdays for your contacts in Address Book.
Step7
Select "iCal" from the top menu and click on "Preferences."
Step8
Click the check box next to "Show Birthdays Calendar" in the "General" tab of the iCal Preferences window. This will bring all the birthdays you entered previously into Address Book. iCal will create a new "Subscriptions" area with the "Birthdays" group. All birthdays in iCal are highlighted with the color in the check box next to "Birthdays" and will automatically recur year after year.
Step9
Close the iCal Preferences window.
Step10
To check the birthdays in iCal, use the month arrows and flip through until you find a birthday. The birthday boy or girl's name appears on their birthday.

Tips & Warnings

  • You can also add anniversary dates or other custom dates you need to remember by choosing "Add Field" and selecting "Date" from the "Card" menu. These, however, will not be added to your iCal calendar.

Photo/Video Credit

Photo by Maria Luisa Menasche http://www.sxc.hu/profile/cornnius

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eHow Article:  How to Add Birthdays to iCal

eHow Expert: Alexia Petrakos

Alexia Petrakos

Expert: Computers

Profession: Renaissance Gal

Location: Georgia

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