Why use Excel? We need to be realistic about our teams’ and stakeholders’ capability to review and understand Gantt charts at all. But I do have something to share with you that will magically make it into a Gantt chart tool. I’ve been asked that a lot! OK, OK, I know that Excel is not a traditional Gantt chart tool. Watch this video for a short tutorial on how to create a Gantt chart with Office Timeline PowerPoint plugin. If you create a lot of status reports in PowerPoint, this is a simple way of designing Gantt charts for communication purposes direct on your slides. It’s as easy to use as the rest of PowerPoint. You can choose dates, set milestones and show progress (showing progress is only an option with the paid version). It’s Gantt chart creator software that lets you create neat Gantt charts from within PowerPoint itself. Office Timeline is a clever free plugin for Microsoft PowerPoint. Let’s get started! Method #1: Make a Gantt Chart with Office Timeline PowerPoint Plugin In the article you’ll also find out what has to go in your Gantt chart to make it fit for purpose, and I’ll share some other tips for working with Gantt charts. It’s a subscriber-only benefit and you’ll get access to over 20 free project management templates and resources to help you keep your projects and career on track. Get a free basic Gantt Chart Excel template in my project management resource library. There’s another graphics package I use to create Gantt charts for presentations as well, Vizzlo. I can help! In this article you’ll learn how to create Gantt charts using PowerPoint and Excel: tools you most likely already have. So what do you use instead? Or what can you use if your project doesn’t warrant a massive Gantt chart? Or if you want to use a Gantt chart but you don’t have any specialist software to create one?

The Gantt chart format is often a poor way to communicate to stakeholders.

But MS Project, and tools like it, are often overkill for project stakeholders who don’t care about all the detail.

I have used Microsoft Project for many years and it creates great Gantt charts.

Free easy gantt chart maker