Cornell Academic Calendar in iCal Format

Quick Overview:

The file presented here is an .ics file which can be directly used by iCal, and probably other software using the open iCalendar format. The file is available from:

• CU_Calendar_2013.ics: Cornell 2012-2013 Academic Calendar in iCalendar Format
• CU_Calendar_2012.ics: Cornell 2011-2012 Academic Calendar in iCalendar Format
• AcadCal11.ics: Cornell Academic Calendar in iCalendar format.

You may need to right-click the link to save the file to your hard drive. Be sure it is saved with extension ics. On some systems the files will be recognized as TEXT (which it also is) and a recommendation may be made to save it with extension txt. Once downloaded, you will have an .ics file which can then be imported into iCal for use.

Here is a subscribe link, courtesy of the Instructional Technology Office of the Cornell Department of Mathematics:

• Due to changes in the iCal publishing model, a subscription link for 2012-2013 is not available.
• webcal://www.me.com/ca/sharesubscribe/1.1049892178/6972E245-84D7-4B5F-A1C9-B4C416843CE7.ics 2011-2012 Academic Year
• webcal://ical.mac.com/cu_math_ito/AcadCal11.ics 2010-2011 Academic Year

And a web version of the calendar:

• http://ical.mac.com/cu_math_ito/AcadCal11

Not sure whether Cornell Information Technologies has any plans to publish the calendar in this format. Meanwhile, enjoy!

More details:

You can access the Cornell Academic Calendar page at:

• http://www.cornell.edu/academics/calendar/index.cfm

On the Mac using iCal

You may need to Control-Click (or Right Click) to Save As... On some systems the files will be recognized as TEXT (which it also is) and a recommendation may be made to save it with extension txt. Be sure it is saved with extension ics.

If recognized by your browser as an iCalendar file, you may be prompted to open the file directly in iCal when downloading.

If not directly prompted to load into iCal, double click the downloaded file. You will probably want to open it as a new calendar, separate from any others you may have.

You now have a local copy of the Cornell Academic Calendar as one of your calendars in iCal.

I have published my local copy so I can simply subscribe to it from my iPhone and other Macs I use.

Colophon:

(Or, gory details of how I made the 2010-2011 file presented here.)

• Took the pdf file from the Cornell Academic Calendar page as a start.
• Held down the Option key and selected various rectangles from the pdf to collect the first and second columns of information from the pdf file.
• Pasted the text into a text editor ( I used BBedit ).
• Cleaned it up by hand so rows of the original columns were restored.
• Searched for the SPACE character in each row of the Day Date column and replaced each with a TAB character.
• Manually added the year to dates in 2011 so dates would be interpreted properly when pulling into spreadsheet.
• For events spanning several days, inserted a TAB character and edited to form a full date for the ending date.
• Copied the individual columns and pasted them into a spreadsheet. ( I used OpenOffice ).
• Proofread the resulting columns (some cleanup still necessary inserting and deleting cells to get things aligned properly).
• Downloaded a tool to take a text file and import it into iCal: iCalTextImport3.0 .
• Read its import advice.
• Put headers on the columns in the spreadsheet.
• Added a column in the spreadsheet for Allday Event and set value to TRUE for all rows.
• Deleted extraneous rows with no importable date information.
• Copied the contents of the spreadsheet to the clipboard.
• Pasted into text editor (BBedit again).
• Saved as text file.
• Imported into iCal using iCalTextImport3.0 .
• Named calendar AcadCal11.
• Exported AcadCal11 from iCal to file AcadCal11.ics .
• Uploaded AcadCal11.ics to here.
• Enjoy!

For the 2011-2012 file I typed the entries directly into iCal, that's what computers are for, right For the 2012-2013 file I typed the entries directly into iCal, that's what computers are for, right ;-]

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-- DickFurnas - 2009-08-18