Google Calendar updated with modern look and much-needed new features

Google Calendar for web has been treated to a much-needed makeover.

The service is one of Google’s most popular online tools, but it’s long looked old and somewhat stale compared to some of the company’s other offerings.

The revamped version feels a lot more modern, and has finally caught up with the mobile app.

You can now add far more detail about a meeting room to a Calendar event, such as its size and location, and whether or not it has audio/video equipment or is wheelchair accessible.

To see the information, all you need to do is hover over the room name in a Calendar entry.

You can also add rich text to Calendar invitations, and link out to relevant spreadsheets, documents or presentations in them.

Google has made it easier to manage and understand multiple calendars in the Day view too. Once you click Day and select the calendars you want to compare, the new version of Calendar will display them simultaneously, but in separate columns.

“There are a number of other changes in Calendar, too," says Google. “Now you can see contact information of meeting participants when you hover over their names in a Calendar invite.

“There’s also a new way to view and restore deleted items in one place in case you accidentally delete a meeting. Additionally, ‘Day’, ‘Week’, and ‘Month’ views are now more accessible, featuring better compatibility with screen readers.”

They aren’t enormous changes, but they’re welcome and necessary, and should help users stay organised.

To access the new version, open up Calendar and click the Use New Calendar option in the upper right-hand corner of the main view.

If you can’t see the option, isn’t available for your account yet.