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.
35 Responses to “Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel [templates]”
"Please share your experiences and ideas using comments"
For those willing to go VBA, XL can do far more w/Gantt Charts. Compare to PapaGantt. https://sites.google.com/site/beyondexcel/project-updates/papagantt-thebigdaddyofxlganttcharts
While making PapaGantt was neither quick nor easy, using PapaGantt is both, not just for displaying Gantts, but for scheduling tasks as well.
is it possible to get a xls(m) file ?
instead of a zip-file with .xml-files ?
i cannot open it with excel :/
Regards
Stef@n
@Stef@n
Try saving the file and then open from Excel as opposed to opening directly from the post
Also try this link: http://img.chandoo.org/pm/quick-gantt-chart-template.xlsx
Thanks very much for this workbook idea.
To slightly up-scale functionality I added:
1. conditional format for when the cell value =2 to be red which could be used for critical path or other activity highlighting needs (milestones perhaps)
2. conditional format for when the cell value =c to be green which could be used for showing activity progress
3. conditional format for the same range where formula =DATE(YEAR(D$5),MONTH(D$5),DAY(D$5))=TODAY() and set custom to ;;; and cell fill colour to a light blue. This will highlight today down the whole table to allow quick assessment of activity progress to plan. Anything not green upto where the date indicator is shows activity is behind the plan. Opposite for tasks ahead of the plan.
(There is probably a better way to get the same result but this works for now. If there is please post for us to share.)
Hope this made enough sense.
Also, thanks Craig for the link. I'll have a better look soon.
Regards,
Darren
Hey Chandoo,
I actually made one of these for a friend of mine but added an extra level of automation.
Rather than putting in 1 on all the dates the activity occurs, I added a column for start and end date of each project. Then I used formula along the lines of :
=IF(AND(DateAtTop >= Start Date, DateAtTop <= End Date),1,"")
Then used the same conditional formatting where 1 was coloured.
I thought this was a nice touch, especially if a project lasts for many days.
Let me know what you think 😉
Lucas
P.S. First time I've posted here, love your work btw!
Hi Lucas... welcome to the comments and thanks for your first of many comments.
I like the idea. In fact, it was one of the first Excel tricks I ever learned (to use conditional formatting to automate things like this). See this (written almost 6 years ago)
http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/03/13/want-to-be-an-excel-conditional-formatting-rock-star-read-this/
and scroll-down to the tip on gantt charts. 🙂
I liked this approach and tried adding it into the Conditional format via Formula = statement. It workd fine with just the AND statement but then I realised you need the "1"'s to calcluate the duration.
I then put the whole IF statemnt in but it hasnt worked. Any thoughts?
Ta
Hi Lucas and Darren,
I tried the conditional formatting but I really don't succeed in getting the solution. Do you have a template of this?
Thanks in advance
Br
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[…] via Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel [templates]. […]
Excellent, thanks for this tip and expample.
I had a monthly reporting template very similar to this, but was done in excel which needed more manual inputs.
I used your exmaple and updated my monthly group reporting plan.
I further devided the day into 4 quarters to make it easy for us to followup on different tasks.
Now, I just have to update the start date, and everything gets udpated by itself in fraction of a second.
Thanks once again. love your daily udpates.
Wow.. glad to hear that.
Hi Prahlad,
Can you share ur template even i am looking for similar kind of template .where i want day duration ,split in hrs and each task effort represented in hr spent by each resource .
Thanks
savi
Hi Chandoo,
Can you guide on preparing an indian version of the captioned sheet. We have saturdays working :-(, and only one day weekly off on sunday.
Regards-Prajay
Hi Chandoo,very useful post.i need gantt chart for inventory module.
[…] Quick and easy Gantt chart using Excel […]
Hi.
Really usefull post. I would like to know if i can also include weekends.
Thank you
Hi Chandoo, thank you for the great job, I was wondering if you can customize this sheet for Inventory planning purposes?!
thank you indeed
This was so helpful. ive been through about 10 different tutorial type things and this has to be the best so far, helped me out a great deal. and now my boss is happy i can make gantt charts!
thanks
This's a great post, thanks for sharing
Hi Chandoo,
Thanks for the excel tutorial. I wanted to make a simple modification, however it will cause issues with the duration part. I created another rule/cell marked 2. For my project I want to show a projected timeline and then an actual timeline. The issue is that the duration is being logged for when I enter 2, which I want to be projected and not actual. Will you please assist in letting me know how I can create a duration for both project and actual on the same line?
Thank you,
Steven
Showing vertical line between every week is very useful for me, I used to do it manually. Thanks so much!!
But how about, my gantt chart included Saturday & Sunday, and I want to show the vertical line after Sunday, could any expert teach me how to fix it. Thanks again.
This was so helpful - thank you! I had a bit of trouble with the end of the week conditional formatting over-writing the filled cells but switching the order of the rules sorted it out. Needed to put together a gantt chart quickly for an important bid at short notice and this was just the job - thanks for taking the time to post it. Much appreciated.
This is the first time I'm reading a tutorial that actually makes sense 🙂 This is absolutely great, with only one minor issue I can't seem to figure out on my own. How do I include weekends in (or instead of) the Workday formula? Thank you!
[…] This template I made myself but I inspired from Chandoo.org. […]
Hi,
Sometimes I must work at weekends - it is possible to modify the dates so that you can include Sat + Sun as well?
Thanks,
H
Nice gantt chart template chandoo, simple but useful
Thank you so much for this excellent guide! I have adapted this to show scheduled activities at multiple project sites weekly over the course of the year, including active and proposed work. With just a tiny bit of tweaking to your tutorial, I was able to create a chart that suited my needs perfectly!
Thank you very much for idea sharing .very innovative workday formula is showing 5 days but i want 6 days , is there any other option plz reply..
i got it friends..
=WORKDAY.INTL(F4,1,11)
hhhhhh
@Somnath
I also like the structure using =WORKDAY.INTL(F4,1,"0000001")
where each day is a 0 or 1
Hi thanks a lot for the tuto!! It helped me a lot!!
But can you tell me how can I add a vertical line representing today on it?
@Cynthia
Open the template
Select D7:DS26
Goto Conditional formatting
New Rule
Use a Formula
=D$5=today()
then set the format as a Red Right Hand Border only
Apply
Do not select stop here for the rule
Hi Chandoo,
I purchased your Project Management templates a month ago and have not had the chance to thank you for the great templates. Thank you!!!!! It has saved me a lot of time creating and re creating templates. Unfortunately, I had to do a lot of customization but it's not that bad. I am now in the process of customizing my GANTT which my boss thinks is too granular. He doesn't want to see a weekly grant. Only the months should be showing. I have researched and researched but to no avail. Do you have any examples I can look at?
Hi Chandoo,
thanks so much for all your tips on Gantt Table.
I'm actually building one at the moment and want to use the conditional formatting. However, I always get into trouble with that when I have to add new lines. I don't know the final size of my table yet and I eventually also want other people to be able to work with it.
Conditional formatting tends to "split up" into various "applies to" ranges when you insert a new row or copy and past values from somewhere.
I'm sure you've come across this issue already... So far I couldn't find a feasible solution to this. I was wondering if you had an idea / suggestion for me?
Thanks so much!!!
Nadine