How Can I Share Outlook Calendars and Contacts between My Co-Workers or Family without Exchange?

Sharing Outlook calendar, contact, and task information is easy with OfficeCalendar. View, create, and edit your co-worker's appointments and contacts just as you do with your own - all from within your copy of Microsoft Outlook.

OfficeCalendar can be purchased here

If you have Outlook 2007 and a Windows Live Account (it's free), you can publish your calendar to the web.

You can share your Outlook 2007 calendar with anyone by publishing it to the Web via Microsoft's Office Online service. It's free!

Click the "Publish My Calendar" link on the left side of Outlook 2007's Calendar screen to place it on the Web.

Open your Outlook 2007 calendar and click the Publish My Calendar link on the left side. A wizard will walk you through the publishing process. Sign in with your Windows Live ID (any Hotmail or MSN account will do). If you don't have a Windows Live account, the wizard will prompt you to create one and then sign in.

Choose how much information to share via the Detail options in Outlook 2007's Published Calendar dialog.

After you sign in, a form will appear, asking you to specify the calendar's time span and to set permissions for who can view it (anyone, or just the people you choose). Click the down arrow to the right of Detail to choose how much detail to show; for example, you may want to show actual appointments and descriptions, fewer details, or merely general terms such as "free" and "busy".

Keep your online calendar from updating automatically by checking the option for a single upload.

By default, your Office Online calendar will regularly and automatically update itself to reflect any changes you've made to it in Outlook. If you would prefer that it not update at all, click Advanced, select Single Upload, and click OK .

Send e-mail invitations to view your calendar by clicking the "Yes" option in this dialog box.

When you're ready to publish your calendar, click OK. You'll receive a notice asking whether you would like to send out an invitation to others to view your calendar online. Click Yes if you want to send e-mail invitations.

Bonus tip: To publish your calendar to any Web site, save your calendar as an HTML page and then publish it as you would any other HTML page. The calendar won't be "live"--any time you make a change, you'll have to re-upload it. Open your calendar in Outlook 2007, and choose File, Save as Web Page; from the screen that appears, select the duration of the calendar and specify whether to include appointment details. Give the calendar a title. If you want it to have a background graphic, check Use background graphic and browse to the graphic. Name the file, making sure to give it an .html or .htm extension, and change the file's location by clicking the Browse button and navigating to a new destination. Once you're done, upload the file to your Web page, as you would any other file.