gantt chart: A important topic in project management

A Gantt chart is depictated interms of bar chart in different forms and shape and size. It gives visual flow and illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project.

how to use Excel to Create a Gantt chart

A Gantt chart is a particular style of bar chart that illustrates the scope of a project. A Gantt chart demonstrates elements of a project, such as the date work began and the amount of work performed as of the current date. Microsoft Office users generally turn to Excel when a graph or chart is needed, due to its comprehensive chart-making capabilities. Excel does not offer a Gantt chart in the standard chart types. However, with a little tweaking, making a Gantt chart in Excel is possible.

Steps to learn how to make Gantt charts in excel

First of all to create Gantt chart in Excel you have to input the project timeline data into a spreadsheet:

• Write some details of the project e.g. Project name, Project manager name etc(This part is optional for the Gantt chart)
• As shown in the following image write the all details about the project like Project name, Starting date of project, Duration etc

• Use your mouse to select the cells by clicking the first cell and dragging across all of them.

• Click the "Insert" tab and select "Bar" from the "Chart" group. In Excel 2003 or earlier, click the "Chart Wizard," which is on the Standard toolbar and then choose "Bar." In any version of Excel, choose "Stacked Bar" as the chart subtype and click "Finish."

• Then at the last an image is shown on the screen as following. This is the Gantt chart for the data you entered in the excel spread sheet