OL97: Changing the Time Zone Without Changing Appointment Times

MORE INFORMATION

Outlook automatically adjusts the times of your appointments when you change the time zone setting. For example, if you have an appointment at 9:00 A.M. on your calendar and you change the time zone from Eastern Time to Pacific Time, the appointment will be changed to 6:00 A.M. This feature is useful if you travel with your computer.

However, you may want to change the time zone setting in Outlook without changing the times of your appointments. This is useful if Outlook was set to the incorrect time zone when you began entering appointments in your calendar.

To change the time zone setting in Outlook without changing the times for your appointments, follow these steps:

Export the Appointments

1. On the File menu, click Import And Export.
2. In the Import and Export Wizard, select "Export to a file," and click Next.
3. Click to select the Calendar folder and click Next.
4. Click to select "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" and click Next.
5. Type the full path and name of the file into which you would like to temporarily export the calendar data, for example, c:\calendar.csv.
6. Click Next.
7. Verify that there is a checkmark in front of "Export Appointments from the Calendar folder," and click Finish.
   
   NOTE: If the calendar you are exporting contains recurring appointments, you must enter a date range for Outlook to create individual occurrences for recurring appointments in that range. It is important to note any recurring appointments will be permanently converted to individual appointments.

Change the Current Time Zone

1. After Outlook finishes exporting the data, click Options on the Tools menu.
2. Click the Calendar tab and then click Time Zone.
3. In the Time Zone list, click to select the time zone you want.
4. Click OK twice.

Import the Appointments

1. On the File menu, click Import And Export.
2. In the Import and Export Wizard, click to select "Import from Schedule+ or another program or file," and click Next.
3. Click to select "Comma Separated Values (Windows)" and click Next.
4. Type the full path and name of the file you exported earlier, and click Next.
5. Click to select the Calendar folder and click Next.
6. Click Finish.
   
   Outlook will import the calendar data back into the calendar folder with the original appointment times.