Comments on: How to make a Gantt chart in Excel

See how you can quickly make a simple Gantt chart in Excel, where you can download advanced Excel Gantt chart templates or utilize the online Project Management Gantt Chart generator. Continue reading →

Comments page 15. Total comments: 426

  1. Hi - I can't see anything saying 'fixed' in format axis -is it the version im using? its excel 2016 - Thanks

    1. Hi Lottie,

      In Excel 2013 and Excel 2016, are no Auto and Fixed radio buttons, so you simply type the number in the box.

  2. This was really helpful. Thanks a lot

  3. Re the above comment- sorry ignore the gaps example its selecting fixed axis options that is the problem for me in 2016 :)

    1. Hi Andrew,

      In Excel 2013 and Excel 2016, are no Auto and Fixed radio buttons, and you simply type the number in the box to make a certain unit fixed.

      I've added this note to the tutorial, thanks for pointing it out!

  4. Really nice tutorial - thank you.

    However Excel 2016 has a few changes (like closing the gap between bars) - any chance of an update for this version?

  5. Hi - I am trying to add an item but it is not accepting this when i go to my select data - how do i add my tasks to include them in my gant chart? :-(

  6. Very nice.

  7. Great article, spot on. Thanks for sharing.

  8. I will be using your tips, n this will help me save a lot of time... Thank you very much.

  9. thanks

  10. How can I add same repeated task at different dates in Gantt chart??

  11. This is the most helpful site across the entire internet to make a Gantt Chart. However, today I stumbled on some software that not many are familiar with - Microsoft Project... This looks like something that should be in the Microsoft Office Suite but it is somehow sold separately... Really easy to use... just feed data and it creates a Gantt Chart with additional details like who is to perform the task, how many hours they take, amount of resources used etc. But this site is just super...

  12. can anyone please help me?

    I need to make a gantt chart for the process unavailability in my plant. The shift starts at 8am and ends at 8am on the next day. And there are some 10 process which have their individual break downs. How to make the chart using time as horizontal series?

  13. Hi, I want to show Gantt Chart in Time, The date will be same for all the task/project but for the same date I want different time duration not the days.

  14. excellent

  15. Good day to you!

    I am trying to draw up a Gantt Chart for different building tasks, meaning building trailers, from obtaining the drawings, material, cutting, up to completion... However, I need to block out (stop the next person to be able to enter) the next task-starting date to ensure that the first task is completed 100% before the next task-starting-date may be entered. In other words, the cell must be "unlocked" by the previous "% completion" cell information. Please can someone tell me how to do this?

  16. Good Day to you :)

    I was able to drew Gantt Chart for my school project, after learning from your instructions. However, the dates on the chart displayed on the chart is totally different from the ones I had created on the list. Will you be able to advice me?

    Thank you and with warmest regards,
    Nay Lin

  17. I am stuck on point 6. I am using Excel 2013 and when I click on Format Axis under 'Axis Options' there is no 'Fixed' options to change to. Only min & max. Please can you help?

  18. Can you please help? I have been trying for hours to make the tasks names closer together, as there is a huge gap, in between. Have tried in Format Data Series but there does not seem to be an option there that will allow me to edit (it is greyed out). I have Excel 2013, so options shown above aren't necessarily the same.

    1. it's all good, just figured it out.

  19. when i tried to select the data, it only shows 'sheet1'!.....whereas in your sample if I click select data it will show 'Ghantt'!. why is so?

    1. Hi Pema,

      'sheet1'! is just the name of the sheet where you are selecting data. In my sample workbook, I named the sheet "Gantt chart" and therefore you see this name.

  20. Thank you VERY much for this tutorial. At first I wanted to give up since it looked difficult to me but I followed it step by step and it was very easy to follow because it is well explained.

  21. I have been able to edit a Gannt template into a 2 year construction schedule that has as many as 200+ tasks in rows and dates are shown in columns. Conditional formatting highlights dates and progress of each task. I have frozen panes at cell I-10 to maintain tasks on the left and dates across the top.
    I have created a lookup cell where you can enter a date in that highlights the proposed start of a 3 week look-ahead schedule.

    My 1st issue is when I enter the date to begin my 3 week schedule; it will highlight the proper beginning date column as desired, but I have to manually scroll over to the highlighted column to view the date (potentially 500+ columns to the right). I want Excel to automatically scroll the highlighted start date column to the left; (within viewing area) beside column ‘H’.

    My 2nd issue is that I want to be able to print just the 3 week schedule and frozen panes starting on the highlighted column (basically print the same thing I see on the screen) and down to the bottom of active task rows (this could be as few as 10 and as many as 200 rows).
    I have been able to highlight the cells I want to print and use the “print Selection” printer option as an elementary work around, however I have been unsuccessful in accomplishing the dynamic print issue with the a function or command. I may not have the correct format or function. Is it possible to accomplish this and can you lead me in the right direction?
    Thanks!

  22. Good stuff here. Am on it let me see what I will come up with definitely its a gannt chart but I would really love it to resemble the tutor's.

  23. Madam,

    Thanks a lot for nice article with clear understanding,

    In addition it is requested to further inform about plotting in single line with different colours instead of steps (as above gantt steps) possible with excel chart commands (not with VBA codes).

  24. Thank you so much for this tutorial! But I see the milestones on the first image. Could you please describe how to add a few simple milestone to the same gantt chart?

  25. Completing a research proposal for my MSc and this made it easy and pretty straight forward to produce a timing plan. Thanks!!

  26. thanks for a clear explanation

  27. I tried setting up the date axis but couldn't select the "fixed" option under part 6.2. I'm using Excel for Mac.

    1. Hi Gregg,

      In Excel for Mac there are no Auto and Fixed radio buttons, so you simply type the number in the box.

  28. Brilliant article and I recreated the Gantt easily. How did you ever figure this out!

    Thanks for publishing this as I will be using this method quite regularly!

  29. Great works,

    i have query that i want make a gantt chart where i can track a multiple work done by person on Minute Scale.And Works are over lapping to each other in time frame.
    Please help
    Thanks in Advance

    1. Hello, Karan,

      Please try to count duration in minutes. Hope this helps.

  30. Wow!!! I am so glad I found your site; my gantt chart looks amazing. Thanks to you, I received many kudos. Thanks again Svetlana!

  31. Thanks. Can I add or mirror the dates to the top and bottom of the gantt chart?

  32. Very nice tutorial Svetlana!

    Thanks

    Stuart

  33. This is great, but would love to place a line onto the chart for critical path. I've tried adding an XY with lines, but Excel2013 keeps applying secondary axis and greys it out so you can't change. Any ideas ?

  34. How can I add a Milestone?

  35. BEST and easiest to follow instructions I found. Thank you!

  36. Very good tutorial. thanks you for sharing.
    1 question : I nee to display teh date format in a specific format : weekly YY-WW example 15W49

    I face issue as it seems that graph is based on serial number only...(excel 2010)

    Have you the trick to solve this?

  37. Hi

    I'm trying to get the months to show on the horizontal axis the entire month ie 1- 30 April in one block, with solid line at the start and at the end of the month, but instead solid line appears in the middle of the month.

    How do you fix this? I've tried formatting the axis.

    Thank you

  38. Hello, I have used this chart, but I have added the "workday" function with a list of holidays. How do I make the duration bar actually represent the true duration with weekends and holidays included?

  39. Is it possible to label the bars with task names in the gnatt chart above ? Thx.

    1. The task names are retrieved from the source data. As soon as you change the names in your worksheet, the Gantt chat will reflect the changes.

      1. I need to make a gantt chart for the process unavailability in my plant. The shift starts at 8am and ends at 8am on the next day. And there are some 10 process which have their individual break downs. How to make the chart using time as horizontal series?

  40. When using the Project Planner Template in Excel, can the periods be changed to dates? I've tried to change them via formatting and that is not an issue, however it pushes back all of the percentages complete (at least by a month) that I've already input. It also changes those from actual to beyond plan on my spreadsheet.

  41. Hi,
    Is it possible to display date and time on the Gantt chart? I have to display a schedule of classes that will take place over a period of 6 weeks.Each class is 1 hour long and there are total of 27 classes.
    Thanks

  42. Hello, I was following your step by steps, and I keep running into the same problem.. When I go to add duration to the data, it says that the chart is to complex and if I add the second set of data the first will be deleted.. I don't understand why. Any help would be great. Thanks

  43. Thanks for a great chart, it worked very well. The intructions made sense and were very clear. My question is, how do I add two set of dates for the same category? For example, "coding" and "system test" will occur again for a specified date and duration. How can I add those to the chart? I want to show that coding will occur for a week in May and also for a week in June, how could I show that? I haven't been able to figure that out.

  44. Can we generate a chart with unit as "months" instead of "days"?
    Ex: Start Date is 01-Jan-2015, End Date is 01-Feb-2015. So duration for me (in months) = 1.
    How to plot the graph using the unit as "Months".
    Please help.

  45. Hi,

    How can i incorporate the progress in % on the gantt chart?

    Thanks

  46. Thanks great tutorial

  47. As an event's student at University this website helped save my life! What could of been hours of stress making a Gantt chart was turned into a few minutes! #lifesaver Highly recommended!

  48. Thanks very much for this.

    How do you format the above step by step chart to also show things like percentage complete, plan start, actual start, etc.?

    Could you help with that?

  49. How do you get the percentages to display on the bars (like the screenshot at the very top of the page)?

    Also, this is a very nice tutorial. Thanks!

  50. Hi Svetlana,

    The gantt chart worked fine for me and what I needed it for.

    Thanks for the tips.

    Jim

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