At work, I interact with Europeans on a daily basis. When building schedules they often refer to "Week Numbers". Before I found this calendar option in Outlook it was a little annoying however now, I’ve been converted….. I love it.
3/2/2010 Update: Article updated to include Outlook 2010 Steps at the bottom of Tutorial.
Below is a SIMPLE step by step for adding week numbers to your Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007 calendar. If your looking for the Outlook 2010 instructions, scroll to the bottom. I just added those steps.
How To Add Week Numbers to Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007 Calendar
1: Click Tools, Options
2. On the Preferences tab, Click Calendar Options…
3. Check box "Show week numbers in the Month View and Date Navigator"
4. Click OK a few times and YOUR DONE!!! GROOVY!!!
BEFORE AFTER
Snips above taken from Microsoft Outlook 2007
The steps for Outlook 2010 are a little different being that Microsoft moved things around a little with Office 2010. Again, pretty straight forward.
How To Add Week Numbers to Microsoft Outlook 2010 Calendar
5. Open Outlook 2010 and Click File, Options
6. Click Calendar Tab then Scroll down to Display Options as shown below. Check Box Show week numbers in the month and in the Date Navigator. Click OK to Save
Tags: calendar, client, howto, outlook+2003, outlook+2007, outlook+2010
Never actually knew this existed. Excellent quick tip!
Thanks,
I spent a lot of time looking for this option.
Welcome to the site Jelena!
It’s excellent to see we were able to help.
@MrGroove,
What can I do if the line in step 3 are “grayed out?”
It won’t let me select it.
@DAve,
Is this a work computer? I’m guessing your system administrator might have blocked it with Group Policy. Let me know if this isn’t a company pc.
On Outlook 2003, there is a bug as January 1st 2008 up to January 6th 2008 is considered as Week 53 by Microsoft.
How can I solve this issue?
Thanks
Regards
Alnoor
@Alnoor – Welcome to the site!
That’s very odd. I’m looking at one of my machines running Microsoft Outlook 2003 and I don’t have a week 53. Week 1 starts as normal (12/30/07 – 01/05/08). Please start a thread in the FORUM and explain how your calendar is setup, specifically: What timezone are you in? What does did you set the Week to begin? What OS? Etc…
fantastic, excellent
@Stormin – Welcome to the site and Thank you for the feedback!
I have Outlook 2003. When I go to Calendar Options, I only have the option to show week numbers in the Date Navigator. The text doesn’t match what you have in the screen shot. Is there some place is the system registry that I could go to enable the option to show it in the Month View as well?
@Goddammit – The screenshot was taken from Outlook 2007 so you are correct, your options WILL look a little different in Outlook 2003.
Additionally, Outlook 2003 does not support the Week number in the Month view. Only Outlook 2007 does this hence the difference in the “Check” box Language. If you enable the Check box in Outlook 2003 however, you will have the week numbers in the date navigator (the little calendar on the left side of your calendar views) as shown in the screenshots at the END of my article.
Sorry for the confusion. When I get a chance I’ll update the article to reflect this information.
BTW – Welcome to the site! Nice name btw…
This is very useful.
However, I work in a University and week 1 is the 1st September, and I would like to display these week numbers
Any suggestions?? I use outlook 2007
Big Rich
@Big Rich – Welcome to the site!
You ask an interesting question. I did some quick searching and what I’ve found “so far” is that Microsoft doesn’t support changing when in the year Week 1 Starts. Take a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196567
I keep digging but it doesn’t look very promising. Perhaps one of our readers has move info?
Thanks!
Wish iCal could do the same..
Thank you very much! It simplified my work and cease the confusions of work schedules.
Thanks for the very clear how to.
Thank you so much. Such a simple thing. Go figure. Appreciate the help.
I’ve been looking for this option in the Outlook help forever. This is a lifesaver for me as otherwise I’ve to always refer to my desk calendar.
Thanks a lot!!! I’ve been trying to display the week numbers for ages. Couldn’t find the topic on the help (F1) and was quite annoying as I work in Europe where people use these all the time. Great tip!
@Priya – Excellent! Thank you for the feedback and welcome to the site! If you ever have an IT question, feel free to use of Community Forum – http://www.groovypost.com/forum/
Thanks! That’s very helpful
Thanks! Very useful feature I didn’t know about.
Does anyone know of a way to automatically change this setting on a great number of pc’s? Ie. a registry setting I can import, a script I can run or some Group Policy setting?
Thanks in advance!
@Thomas – You can do it via the registry or GPO. I would reccomend the GPO of course.
First you need to grab the 2007 Office system Administrative Template files. You can find that here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=92d8519a-e143-4aee-8f7a-e4bbaeba13e7&displaylang=en
One you have those just set the GPO.
GPO Path
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Office Outlook 2007\Tools | Options\Preferences\Calendar Options\Calendar week numbers
Once you set it to enabled and assign it to the Group or OU, you should be golden.
If you want to roll it out a script and registry, here’s the corresponding key however if you had AD and your rolling this out to domain joined systems, use the GPO.
Registry Key
HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar\WeekNum – 1 Enabled, 0 Disabled
Thanks for the tip – been wondering for weeks how to do it!
Excellent little tip. Stumbled across your site while Googling for ‘week number’ solutions.
@Jimbob,
Excellent and Welcome to the site!
Thanks Mr. Groove. Grooooooovy!
@Carl,
Excellent! Glad it helped you out. Welcome to the site!
Thank you very much!
Hey man!
REALLY helpful! I was so in need of it!
Thanks!
@Erich,
Anytime! If you need help with anything else, feel free to post your question in our Free Tech Support Community
See you around!
thank you thank you thank you
Thanks! You should rewrite Microsoft helps site, I couldn’t find this anywhere!
Thanks for the compliment Karen!
Thanks for this. I too searched the Outlook help – I knew this feature had to be available – but couldn’t find it. You gave me the answer and in very clear steps. I’m a tech writer; I appreciate well-written instructions. Hello, Microsoft! Are you listening?
Excellent Tip
Thank you.
Thanks Sheen! Welcome to the site.
One problem here is the Microsoft doesn't seem to follow the ISO standard when it comes to week numbering. At the moment (6th jan 2010) MS thinks this is week 2 when according to the ISO standard it should be week 1. I haven't figured out how to get around this yet.
A work around for the ISO week number is to change the day the week starts on to Friday.
Jeff, where would you set that? I checked under Regional Settings but didn't spot it. I can solve it in Outlook but changing the “first week of year” but it's wrong in Excel too.
Mac, I ended up changing the “first week of year” as well, instead of changing “first day of week”. Location
Tools -> Options -> Preferences -> Calendar Options -> Calendar work week (Outlook 2003).
as for Excel ??
I changed it the same way (Outlook 2007) but couldn't find any setting in Excel. It can be done in Excel using some formulas but using only “Weeknum” returns the incorrect week.
You'd think it should be possible to change it via the control panel and let it apply to all programs.
I can't find any such setting under “Date & Time” or “Regional & language Settings”.
problem is that if you change the 'first week of year' to 'first full week' then 2009 is incorrect as according to ISO the week beginning 28 Dec 2009 is week 53.
And the bad news….. Outlook 2010 works exactly like Outlook 2007 so no fix there.
It's about time certain companies tried to understand what the letters “IS” in ISO mean.
thanks man really needed this for university in netherlands
All Outlook 2007 settings could be adjusted from outlook:
tools-options-calendar options.
Like said earlier, based on ISO first week of the year is: First 4-day week!
From the same page you could also set outlook to “Show week numbers…”
Restart outlook, and problems are solved
Thanks for the tip Kari. Knowledge in crowds!!!
By the way, it is the same page shown on top here.
Simply adjust “First week of the year” to “First 4-day week”
Thank you god !!!!!
@Henri
I’m guessing the article helped out? Thanks for the feedback!