Difference between iCalendar ics and the vCalendar vcs

Question

I want to send booking information through mail in an attachment to add in MS Outlook  Which format is better  Especially for MS Outlook 2003

User · Answer

You can try VCS to ICS file converter  Java  works with Windows  Mac  Linux etc    It has the feature of parsing events and todos  You can convert the VCS generated by your Nokia phone  with bluetooth export or via nbuexplorer    Complete support for UTF-8 Quoted-printable encoded strings Completely open source code  GPLv3 and Apache 2 0  Standard iCalendar v2 0 output Encodes multiple files at once  only one event per file  Compatible with Android  iOS  Mozilla Lightning Sunbird  Google Calendar and others Multiplatform

User · Answer

The newer iCalendar format  with more data attached  includes information about the person who created the event  so that when it is imported into Outlook  for example   changes to that event are communicated via email to the creator  This can be helpful when you need to inform others of any changes   However  when I am just exporting an event from one of my calendars to another  I prefer to use vCalendar  since this does not require sending an email message to the creator  usually myself  if I make a change or delete something

User · Answer

Both  ics and  vcs files are in ASCII  If you use  Save As  option to save a calendar entry  Appt  Meeting Request Response Postpone Cancel and etc  in both  ics and  vcs format and use vimdiff  you can easily see the difference   Both  vcs  vCal  and  ics  iCal  belongs to the same VCALENDAR camp  but  vcs file shows   VERSION 1 0  whereas  ics file uses  VERSION 2 0    The spec for vCalendar v1 0 can be found at http   www imc org pdi pdiproddev html  The spec for iCalendar  vCalendar v2 0  is in RFC5545  In general  the newer is better  and that is true for Outlook 2007 and onward  but not for Outlook 2003   For Outlook 2003  the behavior is peculiar  It can save the same calendar entry in both  ics and  vcs format  but it only read  amp  display  vcs file correctly  It can read  ics file but it omits some fields and does not display it in calendar mode  My guess is that back then Microsoft wanted to provide  ics to be compatible with Mac s iCal but  not quite committed to v2 0 yet    So I would say for Outlook 2003   vcs is the native format

User · Answer

The VCS files can have its information coded in Quoted printable which is a nightmare  The above solution recommending  VCS to ICS Calendar Converter  is the way to go

User · Answer

iCalendar was based on a vCalendar and Outlook 2007 handles both formats well so it doesn t really matters which one you choose   I m not sure if this stands for Outlook 2003  I guess you should give it a try   Outlook s default calendar format is iCalendar    ics

[icalendar] Difference between iCalendar (.ics) and the vCalendar (.vcs)

Examples related to icalendar

Examples related to vcalendar

Examples related to rfc2445

Examples related to rfc5545