After a really long wait finally I have used … Excel 2007 (drum roll) and contrary to what many people think, I have found Excel 2007 to be a very well designed piece of software. Of course there are various issues with it and I am sure folks at MS are working on them so that next versions of MS Office are much more pleasant and simpler to use.
I wanted to share 10 wow factors in Excel 2007 that may convince you to try it.
1. The interface is gorgeous and easy on eyes
The Excel 2007 interface is very well polished and looks neat. It is easy on eyes with simple colors. All the file related activities can be accessed from office button on the top-left corner, while ribbon UI provides access to all excel features.
2. When you right click on a cell it shows formatting options as well
Usually when you right click on a cell (or a range of cells) it is to format them. Now you can do that even faster. When you right click excel 2007 shows the standard formatting options as well.
3. Status bar now shows average and count as well
Remember how you can select a bunch of cells in excel 2003 and earlier and findout out their sum (or average or count) quickly by looking at status bar ? Well, now you can find out average, count and sum from status bar (actually you can add more options, just right click on status bar and choose the statistics you want)
4. Improved conditional formatting with micro charts
One of the significant new features of Excel 2007 is improved conditional formatting. It has all the goodness of excel 2003’s conditional formatting and on top added new features like incell micro charts. They are very easy to use.
5. You can format tables in a jiffy
One of the most common formatting tasks is table formatting. Excel 2007 totally automated it with some gorgeous table formats. You can customized these styles very easily.
6. They have a Remove Duplicates button !!!
That is right, finally a remove duplicates button. Select the data, press this button and mention whether you want to overwrite or paste in another place and that is all. Now, if only they could add other common data clean up tasks as buttons…
7. The default chart formatting is way better than that of Excel 2003
The default charts look much much better than those generated in earlier versions of Excel. What more, they have disabled annoyances like font-scaling by default. 🙂
8. Better and Visually Appealing Color Scheme
The default color scheme is very good and provides excellent contrast when used in charts and tables. What more, the colors are no longer limited to 56 but you can add your own colors with much ease.
9. Ribbon is not that difficult to use
The Ribbon UI has been criticized by lot of people. But it is not really that difficult to use and get used to. Although you would need 2-3 clicks for activities that previously took 1-2 clicks. It would have been excellent if MS had provided an option to switch to classic menu navigation.
10. Despite the new look most of the dialogs are same
Even though Excel 2007 may seem like a huge leap from Excel 2003, the underlying dialog boxes, customization options are all same as that of Excel 2003. For eg. you can see that Ctrl + 1 on a cell produces the above “format cells” dialog box which is almost same what you get in 2003 version of excel.
Another thing is all the excel 2003 keyboard shortcuts work in excel 2007, so power users who have learned the shortcuts over a period need not worry about productivity loss.
All in all, I found Excel 2007 pretty ok except for few glitches. I am planning to install (not upgrade) it on my personal computer as well so that I can experiment and learn more.
What is your take on Excel 2007 ? What are the features that wowed you?
PS: This review is based on my first look at the Excel 2007 and not an exhaustive review. I haven’t tested features like pivot tables, VBA, new formulas etc. Stay tuned for more excel 2007 articles in the coming weeks.
13 Responses to “Gantt Box Chart Tutorial & Template – Download and Try today”
Hi Chandoo
As one of your students I have followed your detailed example through with great success. However, Excel is acting in an unexpected way and I wonder if you could take a look?
http://cid-95d070c79aef808e.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Gantt%20Box%20Chart.xlsm
On my version, I have to type 40239 (Which equates to 2 Mar 2010) to get the chart to display 31 May 2010 (which should be 40329)!!??
Have I done something wrong or is Excel acting up?
Thx
Oli
PS Your example file in 2007 displays correctly.
Hi,
I like this idea a lot, but I agree the name is a little drab.
As an American I may just be seeing things, but to me the combination of lines and bars on your chart looks like a bunch of cricket bats.
Maybe you could work that into a catchier name. 🙂
Cheers!
Here is some code I use to keep the axis synched.
It may be useful to some of your readers
It is based on a comment I saw on Daily Dose of Excel.
Function SynchGanttAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
'Sets the X min and X max for Category axis
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
'
'Top Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlCategory, 1)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
'Bottom Horizontal Axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 2)
.MinimumScale = lower
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
Function SynchVerticalAxis(Cname, lower, upper)
Application.Volatile
On Error Resume Next
' Excel 2007 only
'Right hand vertical axis
With ActiveSheet.Shapes(Cname).Chart.Axes(xlValue, 1)
.MinimumScale = 0
.MaximumScale = upper
End With
End Function
@Oli.. Can you check your file again.. I see 40329...
@Dave: Even I saw things.. the bars actually looked like lollipops. How about calling this lollipop chart - now that would be yummy and goes along the tradition of naming charts after eatables (bar, pie, donut...)
@Bob: Superb stuff... thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Chandoo
This looks really good and I think it can also be applied to show project phases / milestones.
Question: Thinking further could this be amended to display a project lifecycle (Idea through to Implementation say 7 phases) on one bar / row? Just imagine 20 projects within a programme all on one chart one bar each showing their respective lifecycle stages i.e. on one page.
Idea: As the Gantt Box Chart this is quite intensive to set up re formatting etc how about the added extra of once you have completed this to "Save as template" i.e. saves the formatting and layout of the chart as a template so you can apply to future charts. Simple to do and will save the time formatting etc again and again and again.
Therefore tip: Click on your chart demo and then click on Save As template icon (2007) - edit file name and click on save. Ready to use / apply via Templates in Change Chart Type window.
Thanks and be very interested if the lifecycle question can be resolved
Mike
How embarrassing.
I was obviously suffering from numerical dyslexia. I was one of those days.
@Mike H: You can easily make this chart to work like a generic project lifecycle plan chart. All you have to do is,
1. in a separate sheet define the steps of lifecycle and various dates in a table (with 5 columns for each of the projects you have).
2. now use a control cell to input the project name you want to show in the chart
3. based on the input, use OFFSET Formulas to get the correct data
4. Rest is same as the tutorial above
For more info on the dynamic charting visit http://chandoo.org/wp/tag/dynamic-charts/ and http://chandoo.org/wp?s=OFFSET
Your solution is really smart but in the en Excel isn't meant to do stuff like this. I, as a former PM, always thought is was frustrating that you had to do stuff like this for something simple like a Gantt chart. So I built Tom's Planner. And would like to plug it here. I think it really solves the problem you are trying to solve in the most efficient way. Check out http://www.tomsplanner.com for a free account or play around with the demo.
Hi there,
Chandoo - this is really a very nice and helpfull chart - I adopted it, so I can report a forecast or the delay of a certain task (coming from my role as an auditor for projects).
One topic I´m currently struggeling with: I do have a project lasting for lets say 12 month. For a management reporting, I want to have kind of snapshot, lets say one month back and 2 month in the future. I tried with the offset formula, but failed. Any idea?
Thx
Lopi
[...] Ein viel geliebter Klassiker ist die Erstellung von GANTT-Diagrammen mit Excel. Wir hatten das Thema wiederholt schon hier. Chandoo.org hat sich mal wieder mit einer neuen Variante hervorgetan: Das GANTT-Box-Chart. [...]
[...] [...]
Hi Chandoo - fantastic xls. One thing I can't figure out how to do is adjust the alignment of the vertical axis. I would like to left align so that I could indent to represent sub tasks. Can that be done? Or is there a better way?
I've been trying to work out if there's a way to show weekends on the graph. The closest thing I've got is to add them on a secondary axis, but then I haven't been able to keep both axis lined up together! Any ideas?
Following on from this - is it possible to show things like holidays?