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Because Outlooks emphasis on today is so minimal, I would like to grey out items in the past.

I found a similar solution here: "Highlighting the Current Day in Outlook 2013 Calendar", but I don't see the (advanced) conditions in Outlook to simply grey out all items with an end date before today.

How can I grey out items/days in the past?

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  • Have you tried setting a darker skin? In the File menu, there's a section in office 2013 where you can make things darker. It also changes the colors of the calendar.
    – LPChip
    Oct 3, 2017 at 8:37

2 Answers 2

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Just like in the solution you've mentioned, use Contidional Formatting for your Calendar. But this time on the Filter's "Advanced" tab, select Field -> All Appointment fields -> End. Specify on or before Condition and today (without quotes) as a Value. Don't forget to add this criteria with "Add to List" button.

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    Unfortunately recurring meetings will get caught up in this rule, even those in the future. Adding a rule for Recurrance Range End means that past recurring appointments won't get caught in this rule until the entire range has ended.
    – Richard
    Oct 4, 2017 at 8:47
  • You can exclude recurring meetings by adding the "Recurrence" "equals" "(none)" additional criteria.
    – thims
    Oct 4, 2017 at 12:17
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    That just means that recurring appointments will never ever be grayed out, even after the final occurrence has finished. The OP wants all past items to be greyed out.
    – Richard
    Oct 4, 2017 at 12:21
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    This isn't an effective solution. It will grey out items that take place today, so not just in the past. Also the recurring items are problematic.
    – Jonathan
    Oct 5, 2017 at 9:56
  • You can use the "today-1" value if needed. As for recurring items... I will take a look at them.
    – thims
    Oct 5, 2017 at 14:25
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I found a different way around this. Not being satisfied with the conditional formatting solution (- owing to the failure in recurring appointments not being affected), I tried just changing the calendar colour away from the default. (View>Color). Picking something more garish such as the bright blue, or pink, makes the subtle emphasis on today contrast more starkly with the grey background, so it's more effective.

Now I just have to put up with a fluorescent calendar 😅.

Also, moving my Reading Pane (View>Layout>Reading pane) to the Righthand side and increasing its size, so that the day columns are narrower, makes it easier to differentiate them. (This is more of an issue on a large monitor than a smaller one, i.e. laptop).

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