How to Create a Calendar in Excel (with Free Template)

What is an Excel calendar?

An Excel calendar is a calendar created using Microsoft Excel, which can be customized for various purposes. These calendars leverage Excel's grid format, formulas, and formatting options to display dates, holidays, events, and other relevant information. They can be simple date grids or complex templates with features like automatic date filling, holiday highlighting, and task scheduling, all aimed at making your planning and scheduling more efficient.

Some common uses for Excel calendars include:

1. Scheduling appointments and events
2. Tracking holidays and observances
3. Planning projects and tasks
4. Monitoring sales and attendance
5. Creating a budget and tracking expenses
6. Tracking employee hours and availability

How to Make an Excel Calendar Step-by-Step

The good news is that you can make a calendar regardless of your Excel version. Our demo is made using Microsoft 365, but you are welcome to use older versions, as well as the free online version. Understand the idea behind an Excel calendar, and you’ll be all alright.

Step 1: Preparations

Create a blank Excel spreadsheet and save it using an appropriate name (e.g., calendar 202X). Then, rename the sheet as ‘January’. Leave a couple of rows empty and use the third one to insert the month's name, in this case, January. Use a larger font or a highlight to make it stand out. It helps you avoid mistakes in the future.

Now, on the row below the month's name, insert each day of the week as a column headline. Use the standard order in your country. For example, in the US, the week often starts with Sunday, while in European countries, it often starts with Monday.

Step 2: Formatting

Take the time to define a format that fits your company’s culture. For example, you can use the company’s colors and logo but also preferred fonts and page dimensions. Remember this is a calendar you’ll use every day, share with your colleagues, and use as a reference for the next year’s calendar.

So, hide the grids (Page Layout/Gridlines uncheck View) and draw some borders. Six rows will be enough because no month spreads for more than six weeks. You may want to use a thicker border on the outside and thinner ones between days.

Also, decide whether you need to highlight the weekend or not. Adjust the height and weight of columns and rows to make it look like a calendar.

Step 3: Add Data

You can add the days of the month in several ways. The easiest but also the most time-consuming is to add the days sequentially. You can also add two or three days in a week, then select them and drag the selection over the remaining days. Excel will continue the sequence for you.

The most complex but fast way to add the days of a month is to use Excel formulas. For example, given the year (e.g., 2024) and the month (e.g., 1 for January), the first day of the month is =DATE(2024;1; 1). Each following day is computed by adding 1 to the previous one. If you use this method, make sure you format the day cells as dates, showing just the day.

Of course, you can use more complicated formulas that verify the end of a month, take data from other cells (e.g., the year), and so on.

Step 4: Create the Remaining Months

Now that January is complete, you need to add the remaining months of the year. Right-click on the January tab and choose Move or Copy from the drop-down menu. In the small window that opens, select move to end and check the Create a copy checkbox A copy of the current sheet will appear afterward. Rename it February and adjust the days in the calendar. Then, move on to creating March to December.

How to Use Pre-made Excel Templates?

If you don’t want to make a calendar in Excel from scratch, the popular spreadsheet software helps you with a few templates from which you can choose. Instead of creating a blank spreadsheet, go to File/New from Template and select the 12-Month Calendar template. Excel offers multiple calendar templates, each with a purpose and aspect, such as academic calendars, Advent calendars, seasonal calendars, and calendars focused on events, moon phases, and daily agendas.

Once you’ve created a spreadsheet with the calendar template of your choice, proceed to personalize it to match your business requirements. You can change each item individually (e.g., fonts, colors, dimensions, etc.) or go to Page Layout/Themes and choose a pre-made color and font scheme.

Free Excel Calendar Template

There is an even simpler way to create a calendar in Excel that fits your business. Download our free Excel calendar template. It’s easy to use, neutral, and formal. You barely need to change anything before using it. It also uses formulas and dynamically changes the days for each month when you change the year. Furthermore, it provides space for adding notes, such as meetings or public holidays.

How to use the Excel calendar template?

To start using the free monthly excel template follow these steps:

• In the first tab of the sheet, select the year you want to use the template (by default is 2025), however you can change it to the year you want.
• Add public holidays for your country
• Conditionally format the weekends.
• Highlight important dates such as dates of birth.
• Add specific milestones according to your product roadmap.
• Mark specific events that you want to attend.
• Once you've made all the edits, print the file.

Tip: This template has been previously formatted and the formulas have been added so that after the year is selected, the months and days will be automatically updated.

Benefits of Calendars in Excel

Calendars in Excel have many benefits, starting with the fact that they are your go-to software for management. They offer customizable space you can easily adapt for daily agendas, task scheduling, deadlines, leave management, and so on. They also offer powerful formulas that make next year’s calendar in seconds. The versatility of Excel allows you to use the calendar for various purposes, such as daily planners, attendance trackers, and more. To summarize, here are the most appreciated benefits of calendars in Excel:

• Easy to customize for your business requirements
• Easy to share (everyone knows how to work in Excel)
• Versatile (use them as calendars, daily planners, attendance trackers, etc.)
• Plenty of pre-made templates to choose from
• Plenty of export options (e.g., pdf, printable images, etc.).

Tip: If you want to see all your employees work schedules, absences, public holidays, blackout days, working days, and more in the same page, automatically updated, check our system. More details in the vacation calendar.

Calendars in Excel Limitations

It's hard to believe, but Excel calendars have limitations, especially if you go for the easy-no-formula versions. Here are those people complain the most about:

• The need to understand how Excel formulas work (e.g., copy-paste formulas may be tricky)
• Multi-purposing may lead to mistakes (e.g., using Excel calendars as leave trackers when they were not built for this purpose)
• There is no way of assigning roles with different access rights (everyone can edit the calendar)

In conclusion, if you need just a calendar with simple, dynamic ways of reusing it next year, go for a calendar in Excel. Use it to make small notes, daily agenda memos, and everything you normally use a calendar for. But if you want a tool that tracks attendance and time off, keeps count of leave balances, and takes care of employee management, go for a dedicated HR software, such as LeaveBoard. On top of all these, LeaveBoard includes calendars with public holidays as well and synchronizes with other management tools you may already use.

FAQ

Some common formulas and functions used in Excel calendars include:

1. TODAY() function: Returns the current date.
2. EOMONTH() function: Returns the last day of the month.
3. WORKDAY() function: Returns the number of workdays between two dates.
4. IF() function: Used to test conditions and return values.

Tip: Check our 100 Excel formulas to boost your excel skills.

Why conditional formatting should be used within Excel calendars?

Some common conditional formatting rules used in Excel calendars include:

1. Highlighting weekends
2. Highlighting holidays
3. Highlighting important dates
4. Highlighting finalizing milestones.

What types of Excel Calendars are out there?

In general, we can find 5 types of excel calendars: Monthly, Yearly, Weekly, Daily planners, and Event calendars. Let's see the commonalities of each ones of them:

1. Monthly Calendar:

   • Displays one month per sheet with days organized in a typical calendar grid.
   • May include special formatting for weekends and holidays.

2. Yearly Calendar:

   • Shows the entire year on one sheet.
   • Useful for planning and long-term scheduling.

Related: Check our 2024 Yearly Calendar Template

3. Weekly Calendar:

   • Focuses on one week per sheet with more detailed information about each day.
   • Often used for detailed scheduling and task management.

4. Daily Planner:

   • Provides a detailed view of a single day.
   • Useful for tracking appointments, tasks, and hourly schedules.

5. Event Calendar:

   • Highlights specific events or milestones throughout the year.
   • Useful for project planning, event tracking, and reminders.