How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016 - Step-by-Step Gantt Chart Tutorial

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Mia

Learn how to create a professional Gantt chart inside Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016 using a Gantt Excel template. The guide covers opening and enabling the template, creating a new Gantt chart with project details, adding tasks in multiple ways, defining parent-child task structures with rollups, and inserting milestones to track schedule progress. It also explains essential Gantt chart settings such as display themes, baseline/actual/overdue bars, and optional text inside the bars.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Gantt Excel – Quick Start Guide

Open the Gantt Chart Template

Create a New Gantt Chart

Add Tasks

Set Parent and Child Tasks

Add Milestones

Gantt Chart Excel Settings

Display Settings

Menu How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016? Step-by-Step Gantt Chart Tutorial for Making a Gantt Chart in Excel We all love Microsoft Excel and we use it almost every day for everything – from a simple calculator to tracking massive projects. There’s just one thing that Excel is not good at and that is creating Gantt charts. In fact a lot of users on the internet search for “ How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel”. For this reason, we created Gantt Excel, an automated excel template that allows you to create professional-looking Gantt Charts all within Microsoft Excel. [https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 1/13](https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 1/13) 01/08/2019 How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016-Gantt Excel Gantt Excel – Quick Start Guide 1. OPEN THE GANTT CHART TEMPLATE Download the Gantt Excel template if you haven’t done so already. Open the template. The enable macros prompt will automatically show up. Click on the Enable Macros & Enable Editing button. Note that there is no installation. It’s j ust a simple excel template and it opens just like any other excel file. The Gantt Menu tab in the excel ribbon will instantly load (see image below) . 2. CREATE A NEW GANTT CHART Click on the Add New Gantt Chart button to bring up the Project Details window. Enter the Project Name , Worksheet Name , Project Lead and the Estimated/ Baseline Budget for the Project. Kindly note that you can also use Gantt Excel to track project budget and task costs. [https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 2/13](https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 2/13) 01/08/2019 How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016-Gantt Excel Click the Ok button when done. A new Gantt Chart is automatically created for you. 3. ADD TASKS Gantt charts don’t give useful information unless they include all of the tasks/ milestones needed for a project to be completed. So, to start, list all of the activities as tasks. There are three ways to add tasks in Gantt Chart Excel Method 1 : Type directly in the excel grid. If you type a task where it says “Type here to add a new task“, it will automatically create a new task with default start and end dates and the timeline will instantly update. Method 2: Click the Add Task button on the Gantt tab [https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 3/13](https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 3/13) 01/08/2019 How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016-Gantt Excel The task details form will open up where you can enter all the task details including task resource, estimated, baseline, actual – start and end dates. You can also keep track of costs including estimated, baseline and actual costs, therefore making it an excellent budget and costs planner. Task notes can also be captured to include a short description of the task to clarify its purpose or scope and to provide additional info to everyone involved. Click the Ok button when done. The newly added task will show up in the excel grid with all the details. Go ahead and add a few tasks as in the example below and set the start and finish dates. [https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 4/13](https://www.ganttexcel.com/how-to-create-a-gantt-chart-in-excel/ 4/13) 01/08/2019 How to Create a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Excel 2013 & Excel 2016-Gantt Excel Importantly, note that the Work Break Structure (WBS) is automatically calculated and set for you. 4. SET PARENT AND CHILD TASKS If a task is relatively large and requires several users with different skills to manage, break the task into subtasks and create parent-child relationships. To set parent-child relationships, selec

FAQs

How do you open and enable the Gantt Excel template?

Download the template, open it as an Excel file, and click “Enable Macros & Enable Editing” when the prompt appears. Then the Gantt Menu tab loads in the Excel ribbon.

What information is needed to create a new Gantt chart?

Enter the Project Name, Worksheet Name, Project Lead, and the Estimated/Baseline Budget in the Project Details window, then click OK to generate the chart.

How can tasks be added and organized in the Gantt chart?

Tasks can be typed directly into the task grid or added via the Add Task button, then task details such as resources and dates are entered. Parent-child relationships are created using Make Child and Make Parent so dates and costs roll up to the parent.

Which settings can be configured for the Gantt chart display?

Use the Settings icon to adjust theme colors, show baseline/actual date bars and the overdue bar, and enable text display inside Gantt bars by selecting a column to show.

Sep 11, 2026

Uploaded by Mia