Can I export iCal dates to a spreadsheet?

[TheG]

Hi there switched to Mac from PC around 2 months ago and was instantly hooked. I love it. (MacBook Pro 13" - Snow Leopard)

I want to use iCal and at the end of the year export appointments in iCal to a spreadsheet. I have got Numbers and Open Office apps to export to if possible.

I used to use Outlook and Excel to do this on my PC but am trying not to go down the Microsoft route as I love the simplicity of the Apple apps.

Cheers

 

[louishen]

I think Officetime can do that - can extract data from your Ical calendar anyway

Intuitive Time Tracking Software for Mac and Windows.

 

[TheG]

Hi louishen thanks for your suggestion. All are helpful if even to rule out.
I had a look at Office Time which has a lot of features but I think I need a simpler solution otherwise I will need to go down the Microsoft route.

I have heard Microsoft Office 2010 is coming out at some point this year which will contain Outlook (rather than Entourage) although I use the Windows version and find the whole application very busy. I would like to go down the simpler interface route of iCal if possible which also has better integration. If I cant find a solution I will have to get Office and suffer in silence. This may also affect having to possibly move away from Address Book as well.

 

[toMACsh]

You can use the Search function in iCal to generate a list of Events. Then you can Copy those, and Paste them into a spreadsheet. I tried it. It works, after a fashion. The key will be having sufficient Search terms to find the Events you want to "export".

 

[TheG]

Hi toMACsh thanks for that. I tried it and as you say it did work after a fashion although the data that comes out on the spreadsheet is placed vertically rather than say a date being the first field and then subsequent data being placed horizontally in separate cells across the page.

Saying that its the closest Ive got so far.

I am a musician and want to have my gig dates in iCal together with venue, fee received and agents name. At the end of the year I want to transfer all this data to a spreadsheet so I can create my books from them. So that's a simple 4 column spreadsheet is all that is needed. If I could export from iCal in csv format, or other, then what I want would be possible straight away.

Maybe I should have explained that first?

I have since tried widening my search to other software solutions and have initially found Bento which seems to come up a lot. If this is the solution I would be happy to buy this app but I don't want to get more complicated if I can solve it with a simple export in the correct format.

 

[toMACsh]

Yeah, I knew the copy and paste method would not render the format you probably were looking for. Bento is of course a database application, and you'll have to set it up independently from iCal. The problem is iCal's inability to export in an appropriate format, as you know. Unless someone else has found a way...

Good luck!

 

[TheG]

Thanks for your help toMACsh much appreciated!