5 Ways to Insert a Calendar in Google Sheets

Do you want to add a calendar to your Google Sheets?

Calendars are an integral part of any analyst’s life. Today, with the availability of online calendars in hundreds, the topic itself might look irrelevant to you about creating or inserting a calendar in Google Sheets.

I agree with this opinion to a certain degree “why should we insert a custom calendar of our own if we already have many of them available for ready-to-use online?” However, creating calendars in Google Sheets is not a waste.

Creating calendars inside Google Sheets may help because the tool is developed to collaborate online or in real-time. Possibilities are countless with the tool.

You can have customized calendars of your own using which you can track the shift schedules for your employees, their day-to-day shifts, time tracking for the working hours, lunch hours, and whatever you wish to use it for.

On top of that, imagine that all this data will already be shared online in real-time. The manager can immediately look into the employee’s work hours and identify who comes in for what shift. Customizations are countless and what else you could think of is already a benefit of adding a custom calendar inside Google Sheets.

If you are impressed and want to know more about this article, we have suggested four different methods that allow you to insert a calendar in Google Sheets.

Insert a Calendar with Data Validation

One of the simplest and most widely used ways of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets is using Data Validation. Whenever you add or type a date in any cell of the sheet, you will get a pop-up calendar if you double-click on that cell containing that date value.

The catch here is you have to add a proper date value in that cell. Otherwise, this method won’t work.

Alternatively, using the Data Validations to add a pop-up calendar inside sheets is the best way because there might be situations when you want the users to have a choice to pick an appropriate date from the pop-up calendar.

For example, Imagine you want to have the number of invoices a particular user sent on any given date. In such a case, the user should be free to pick a date value of his own on which he actually made the sales, and an invoice is generated.

Follow the steps below to add a calendar using a pop-up calendar (often known as the date picker).

  • Inside your sheet, navigate to the Data menu and click on the Data validation option from the bottom.
  • The Data validation window will open up as shown above, which is already prefilled based on your current inputs.
  • Keep the Cell range as it is. Inside Criteria, click on the dropdown and select Date to apply data validation based on a date value. On the following dropdown inside Criteria, keep is valid date as it is.
  • For the On invalid data option, click on the second radio button that says Reject input.
  • Click on the Save button to save this data validation.

That’s it! You have successfully added a date picker calendar inside your sheet in cell B3. To test that it works perfectly, double-click on cell B3, and you should see a calendar, as shown above.

📝 Note: The data validation option will show a calendar based on the current system date. When you are running this example, the calendar you see will definitely be different than the one you see in the screenshot above.

💡 Tip: There is another way of adding this type of date picker instead of using the data validation method. In any given cell, type a date in yyyy-mm-dd format and double-click on the cell. You will see the date picker calendar there. No need to go through the data validation method.

Insert a Calendar with a Formula

By far, you have seen a method that allows you to create a date picker calendar in any given cell based on the data validation or by typing the date in yyyy-mm-dd format.

Let’s move towards something more complicated yet the customized method of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets.

You can create a calendar of your own which can also be customized using the powerful formulae available inside Google Sheets.

The formula you will see in this section is complex to understand. However, I will break it into sections while explaining it, and I am sure that after you read the explanation, you will understand its logic. For those who didn’t want to scratch their heads, feel free to copy and use it blindly.😉

={
{"Sun","Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat"};
ARRAYFORMULA(
              IF(
                  MONTH(
                         DATE(
                               YEAR(B2),
                               MONTH(B2),
                               SEQUENCE(7,7,-1*(WEEKDAY(EOMONTH(B2,-1)+1)+5),1)
                              )
                        ) =MONTH(B2),
                           SEQUENCE(7,7,-1*(WEEKDAY(EOMONTH(B2,-1)+1)+5),1),
                           ""
                 )
             )
  }

The formula is shown above and will generate an output of a full monthly calendar.

You are bound to get confused by looking at this formula because of the length it has. However, this one is simple and just uses typical date tweaks and the timely use of IF condition to generate a sequence of 7 days of any month. Yes, you heard it right! This formula is generic and generates any monthly calendar for any year based on the date value you provide.

The formula uses the ARRAYFORMULA function to generate a 7 x 7 table of dates corresponding to a given month and year.

The first row of the table represents the days of the week from Sunday to Saturday, while the remaining rows represent the dates of the month.

The function takes as input a cell reference containing the date for which the table is to be generated (cell B2 in this case). It then uses a combination of the SEQUENCE, WEEKDAY, EOMONTH, DATE, MONTH, and IF functions to determine which dates belong in the table for the given month and year.

The SEQUENCE function generates a sequence of numbers from -6 to 0, which represent the number of days before the first day of the month that is in the previous week.

The WEEKDAY function is used to determine the day of the week for the first day of the month in the previous week. EOMONTH is used to calculate the date of the last day of the previous month, while DATE and MONTH are used to construct dates for each day of the table using the year and month specified in cell B2.

Finally, the IF function is used to determine whether each date falls within the given month. If so, the date is included in the table; otherwise, the corresponding cell is left blank.

Feel free to change the date value in cell B2 to any other value (Maybe from past years or future years) and validate that this formula works as expected to generate the calendar for any month from any year.

📝 Note: This formula assumes that the date value is stored in cell B2. If you put the date value somewhere else, you must replace B2 with the corresponding cell reference in the formula to generate an adequate result.

📝 Note: A date value is mandatory in this formula. The cell must contain a valid date value that Google Sheets can understand.

Insert a Calendar with an Add On

There is this beautiful add-on that allows you to pull your Google Calendars into the Sheets. All the events and meetings from your calendar, this tool can pull it up in a sheet. Though it is not exactly an insert calendar way, you can have the important meetings, events, birthdays, and anniversaries imported as a list into a sheet. The add-on name is SyncWith | Any API.

  • To install the SyncWith | Any API add-on to your Google Sheets, navigate towards the Extensions menu, and click on the first dropdown with the name Add-ons, inside it, you will see Get add-ons option. Click on it.
  • A new window will open up with Google Workspace Marketplace. Inside the search box, type SyncWith. and hit the Enter button from your keyboard.
  • You will get a list of add-ons. The first one is what you needed. Click on it and Install the same on your sheets. Right now it is already installed on my sheets so it is appearing as installed.

As soon as you install it, this add-on will appear inside the Extensions menu. Launch it from there.

On the right-hand side, you will see the SyncWith add-on initiated and with a lot of options to pull data from. It also has different database extensions to pull data from (cool no?). inside the search box, type Google Calendar to pull data through it. Click on the first API that appears.

  • A new list of options will open up that allows you to pull the Google calendar. Firstly, give a Title to your calendar.
  • Inside the General section, make sure you have the correct gmail account selected for Select a login dropdown.
  • for the Select a calendar dropdown, make sure you have adequate email selected.
  • Inside the Fields section, you have to mention at least one field that you want to pull. I have mentioned Title, Description, Start Time and End Time to pull through the calendar. You will have different options as well to pull through the dropdown.
  • Finally, hit the Next button.
  • Now, to set up the Sheet settings, keep the first two settings as it is and choose Currently selected cell from dropdown for the Insert location option.
  • Click on the Insert button to pull the events from your Google Calendar to the sheets.

Then, look into the sheet and you can see all the events from the month that are created in Google Sheets with Start time and End Time reflecting as a tabular structure.

The beautiful thing about this add-on is, it allows you to sync your data in real time and provide the updated view.

Insert a Calendar with the Template Gallery

Google Sheets are evolved over the period of time and the various features it provides are proof of the same. One such feature that this tool provides you is with the predefined templates and there is wide variety ranging from a Monthly budget template to the Travel Planner. You can use one such template that is dedicated assigned for the calendars.

The predefined templates are created by smartly using the combination of buil-in formulae and themes present in Google Sheets. These are developed by keeping a specified task in mind. For example, a To-do list template is created smartly that it holds the check box to tick when an event is completed and it also scratches the task as soon as you tick it as completed.

Using this smart way of creating different templates for different day-to-day usage makes life easier at times and it is perfectly saving time plus cost.

There are multiple customized templates and one of our interests is of finding something that can provide us with a calendar layout.

On your sheet, navigate toward the File menu and click on the New dropdown. It is associated with the new sheet creation. You can create a new blank sheet or a custom sheet based on predefined templates as well. There are two options to create a new sheet. Select the one that says From template gallery.

This option allows you to select one from a wide range of predefined templates developed keeping in mind the need of different needs of different users. You don’t have to do anything (at least in terms of formatting)!

A new browser tab will open for Template Gallery with a list of various templates being used for various tasks as shown above.

You can see a template with name “Annual Calendar.” It is the one of your interest. Click on that template and it will open up in a new browser tab as shown above.

The beauty of this calendar is, it holds an annual view of the calendar where all months are placed in a compact form and also the monthly view where each tab is dedicated to each month. You can see in the screenshot above that separate tabs are dedicated to each month which will represent the monthly calendar.

The template also holds the place for monthly notes where you can type in and keep reminders around the important dates.

Secondly, this annual calendar template is created using the formulae and you can easily use those to create a dynamic calendar of your own. That makes this template really cool!

Finally, you can also customize this calendar based on your preference. There are predefined themes that you can apply to the entire sheet which will change the entire look of your calendar. You just need to go to the Format menu and click on the Theme option. It will open up the themes box that has predefined themes that you can apply to the sheet and change the appearance of your custom calendar. If you don’t like those predefined themes, you can also create one of your own by choosing your favorite color schemes.

Phew! a lot of customizations the templates can provide you! I recommend you use them whenever possible for easy and fast access to the work you wanted to get done.

We are now moving towards the last method of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets and it is as interesting as the previous three methods were.

Insert a Calendar with an App Script

If you are someone who is keen on automating the day-to-day stuff, Google Sheets provide you with a way to do so. The tool has its own language which is developed on top of JavaScript which allows you a cloud-based development environment that can automate your sheets, Gmail, and Docs, rather than the entire Google Workspace. Yes, You hear it right! These scripts are valid for the entire Google Workspace, and any app.

If you wanted to know more about the Apps Script, we have a Begginers Guide for Apps Script that can help you get started and build the foundations for the tool.

However, I also recommend reading our articles as in almost every article we discuss a method to automate the task using the Apps Script. Those script codes are free to use.

Just imagine! you will have access to hundreds of scripts that can automate almost every day to day task you do!

Now coming towards the task in hand! We wanted to create a script that can automatically create a calendar in Google Sheet on a single click.

To access the Apps Script environment, navigate toward the Extensions menu and click on the Apps Script option. It will launch the tool into a new browser window.

Now, type the following code inside the code block that appears inside the project which opens up in Apps Script. Be assured, I will explain the work behind it step by step. Feel free to copy it if you are tired of typing it manually 😉

function calendar() {
  sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName('Apps Script Calendar')
  sheet.getRange('D2').setFormula("={{\"Sun\",\"Mon\",\"Tue\",\"Wed\",\"Thu\",\"Fri\",\"Sat\"};ARRAYFORMULA(IF(MONTH(DATE(YEAR(B2),MONTH(B2),SEQUENCE(7,7,-1*(WEEKDAY(EOMONTH(B2,-1)+1)+5),1)))=MONTH(B2),SEQUENCE(7,7,-1*(WEEKDAY(EOMONTH(B2,-1)+1)+5),1),\"\"))}")
  sheet.getRange("D2:J9").setBackground("#D3D3D3")
  sheet.getRange("D2:J2").setFontWeight("bold")       
}

Explanation

  • On the first line, you define the sheet you want to access and implement this code to. The SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName() method allows you to get the active sheet with name Apps Script Calendar. The result is stored into a variable named sheet.
  • Now, you have to get the range on which you can put a formula that can create a calendar. In this example I chose cell D2. the sheet.getRange() method allows me to select the cell D2 and then the setFormula() method allows me to set the formula that we already discussed in “Insert Calendar with a Formula” section. Pay a close attention to backward slashes. Those are used because my formula includes text and I wanted to let the system know that these are string values.
  • Once the formula is set to the cells, use setBackground() method to setup Light Gray color to the calendar background. The color code for it is “D3D3D3.” Pay a close attention to the range selected.
  • Finally, use the setFontWeight() method to make the days appear in bold format (days are stored in cell D2:J2).

Click on the Run button to run this script. If you are using the script for first time after the browser restart, it will ask you to authorise this script running action using your Google account.

You can confirm that this script is working fine using the Execution log. If there is an error in your code, the execution will be terminated in between and you will not see any output.

Once the code runs, you will see an output as shown above. Which allows you to automate the task of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets with the help of a script.

📝 Note: Please note that since you are creating this calendar using a formula, you need to add a date even if you are using a script to automate the task.

Conclusions

Throughout this article, you have been introduced to the five different methods of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets.

The first method talks about the data validation way of inserting a calendar which allows you to set up a rule where you can insert a date picker calendar using the same. This method also works on blank cells provided that you set the rule adequately and double-click on the cell.

The second way of inserting a calendar is using a formula. We use a unique combination of YEAR, MONTH, SEQUENCE, EOMONTH, IF, and ARRAYFORMULA to create a formula that can insert a calendar for the month for which the date is provided. This method provides more control to the user. They can give any date value as an input to this formula and generate a calendar for the month that the date falls in.

The third way of inserting a calendar is using an Add-on. The SyncWith allows you to pull the Google Calendar events, meetings, birthdays into your worksheet and also provides a way to pull multiple columns such as Title, Start and End Date, Description of the event, etc.

You can use the predefined templates in Google Sheets to insert a calendar in your sheet. The beauty of these sheets is they are fully customizable. You can change the calendar appearance, apply custom themes of your own, provide a space to add notes associated with each month, provide an annual view plus the monthly view in dedicated tabs, etc. You don’t need to do anything! Just click on the template and it will load.

The fifth and last way of inserting a calendar in Google Sheets is using an Apps Script. You can write a code of your own that can automate the task of inserting a calendar. Just run the script and it will automatically insert a calendar to a dedicated range mentioned.

Well, these were the five ways using which you can insert a calendar inside Google Sheets. If you like this article and found it helpful, please share it with your peers who can utilize it to increase their productivity and do follow our blog for more such useful tips and tricks.

Until the next time I see you, Ciao!

About the Author

Lalit Salunkhe

Lalit Salunkhe

Lalit is a data analyst with diverse skills and experience in data mining and analysis. He has a M.Sc. in Statistics from one of the top institutes in Maharashtra. Lalit is also a Google Sheets expert and enjoys teaching others how to use Google Sheets to solve their data problems.

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Comments

2 Comments

  1. Rodrigo

    That formula is awesome!
    I never commented before, but I learn a lot here. You and your team helped me optimize my workflow for me and my colleagues!
    Thanks a lot for your excellent work.

    Reply
  2. Alexis

    Hi I am using the “Insert a Calendar with a Formula” method. Is it possible to include the days from the months that the date isn’t apart of, for example if the month starts on a Tuesday is there a way for the date to show up on the sunday and monday from the previous month or if it end on a Thurday can I add the the additional dates of the next month to the end.
    Thank you guys so much! I love this site. It always so helpful.

    Reply

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