UPDATE: Take a look through the rest of the posts before you work too hard. There are some important tweaks.

I posted this in the Tips and Tricks section of the forums, but since that doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic I thought I'd double-post it here. Hopefully that isn't a big deal.

I've seen a few people wondering how to do this or if it is even possible.

I've found a program that will import data from a text file (the only export type Now has) into iCal. It is called iCalTextImport. It is a shareware utility but it seems to do the trick.

Take a look, and if you have any questions let me know.

Thanks thanks thanks! Will try this afternoon!

I downloaded and tried it but it didn't work. Got the following message: "Doesn't understand the event <<SATIRPLI>> message". Do you have any suggestions?

Is there an event called <<SATIRPLI>>? I'd imagine that it is causing the problem. I'm not sure if it will choke on special characters or not (such as <, &, *, %, $, etc.)

Try deleting that event or other events with odd characters and see how it goes.

Another tip:
I found it worked better if I exported the calendars in smaller chunks (each year). As long as you specify the same iCal calendar name it will add the events to the same calendar as those already imported.

Couldn't find any events with a weird name like that, but I exported a text file containing just two days as a test. Got the same error message plus a new one "Doesn't understand the event <<SATIFINd>> message" (this popped up after I ran an event search (command F) for "SATIRPLI"). I'm trying to work this out from my laptop at home, but in the office everything runs through our public event server. Could that have anything to do with it? Your help is very much appreciated. Thanks!

I'm not sure what is going on with that error message. The only thing that came up with a Google search was in German!

One other thing I found was that it incorrectly guessed what delimiter I used for my export. I used Tabs, but it said I used commas. So you might want to double-check that setting.

If you would like me to take a closer look at the file I could PM you my email address. Let me know.

I'd like to take you up on your offer. I confess that this my first experience logging on to a forum. I'm assuming "PM" means personal message that can't be read by any other than the two parties. To keep things simple, I have created a one day file with only one appointment on it and verified that it is generating the same error messages. I'd very much like to send it to you. Thank you very much.

It's been awhile since I did this process, so I'm relearning all the quirks.

First thing, you have to add the scripting addition that comes in the Zip file to your system folder after you download iCalTextImporter. The file is called Satimage.osax and you need to move into HD->Library->Scripting Additions. If you don't do this, then it just won't work.

I also found that I had to pare down the items exported from NOW to get iCalTextImporter to work correctly. I believe I only exported Date, Start Time, End Time, Title, and Description. That worked well, and I doubt the other items would translate into iCal well anyway.

So that will probably fix any problems that anyone may face.

Sorry for having to give out all the useful info piecemeal. I just didn't remember all the little headaches.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I did put the Satimage.oasx file in the HD Library file (not the User Library file). I had to create a Scripting Additions folder as none previously existed. I'm wondering if there is an existing folder under a different name that I should put it in (Mac 10.4.11).

I pared the export file to Date, Start Time, Title, Description and gave it a try, but unfortunately I got the same error messages.

Thanks for trying to help me out. I'll keep an eye on the forum and send an email to the person who wrote the shareware.

Since you had to create the folder double-check that it is "ScriptingAdditions" without a space.

I mentioned the scripting additions, because it sounds like your error messages are directly linked to that. The SATI prefix is in both the error and the scripting addition.

For what it's worth I'm running it on Leopard, too.

Make sure and post back if you happen to resolve your issue.