Every semester, I get an electronic syllabus for each class.  A Word table contains all the assignments for the course.  A few years ago, I could just copy that into Excel and import the spreadsheet into Outlook’s to-do list.

Excel and iCal, however, weren’t made in the same factory and I’m not aware of an easy cut-and-paste way to get an Excel sheet into iCal.  I did some research and came across an AppleScript that claimed to make that conversion for me.  Unfortunately, it was custom-built for a soccer schedule and needed some fixing.  So I adjusted the script, optimized it for my assignment schedule, worked through several bugs with Excel’s time/date format and bundled up an easy little application.

In a nutshell, the app will read the first three columns of your open Excel worksheet: column 1 as date, column 2 as start time and column 3 as event title.  It will then open iCal, allow you to choose the calendar and import all the assignments to that calendar.

You can download the app, script and instructions here and a sample Excel file with proper formatting here.