This is a guest post by Drew Kesler.
You’ve been there before. It’s almost 5:00, and you are going crazy trying to finish the presentation due for a monthly performance meeting the next morning. The model is refreshed, and now it just takes a LOT of copying, pasting, and positioning to get the PowerPoint ready. Finally, the slides are finished…, until you read a new message from your boss requesting a minor change. But of course her change means you have to start all over with the copy and pastes…
There is always a better way! In the Oil and Gas industry, I constantly have monthly reports to assess the performance of our operating assets. Excel VBA makes it a cinch to automate the entire process. So when a simple change is requested, the presentation is automatically generated with the click of a button. No more wasting time!
So, here it is – How to Save TONS of Time by Using an Excel VBA Macro to Build Your Presentation:
1. Build your charts in Excel
2. Create a new worksheet and paste in all the charts you need for the presentation.
3. Open VBA. To do this, you can either press ALT + F11, or you can take the following steps:
a. To show the developer tab, click on the Microsoft Office Button and click Excel Options.
b. Click Popular and then select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon.
c. Click on the Developer tab in the ribbon and click Visual Basic.
4. In your VBA Editor window, click File => Insert => Module.
5. Paste the following code into the module (I included comments so you can customize it to your liking).
6. Click Tools => References.
Add the Microsoft PowerPoint Library.
7. Now all you need to do is go to Excel and run the CreatePowerPoint macro! To make this easy, draw a rectangle shape in your Excel worksheet which contains all the charts you want to export to PowerPoint.
8. Right click the rectangle and click Assign Macro.
9. Click on the CreatePowerPoint macro and press Okay.
10. That’s it! Just click your rectangle button then sit back and watch it run! You’ll have your presentation in no time!
Download the Example Workbook & Play with this Macro
Click here to download the example workbook and play with the macro.
Note: If you have an error with Power Point application activation, use this code instead.
AppActivate ("Microsoft PowerPoint") <-- if this doesn't work
AppActivate "PowerPoint" <-- use this
Thanks Drew
Thank you so much Drew for writing this insightful article and showing us how to automate PPT Creation thru Excel VBA. I have really enjoyed playing this idea. And I am sure our readers will also like it.
If you like this technique, say thanks to Drew.
How do you Automate PPT Creation?
During my day job, I used to make a lot of presentations. But each one was different. So I used to spend hours crafting them.
And nowadays, I hardly make a presentation. But I know many of you make PPTs day in day out. And this technique presented by Drew is a very powerful way to save time.
Do you use macros to automate creation of presentations? What are your favorite tricks & ideas? Please share using comments.
Learn More VBA – Sign-up for our VBA Class Waiting List
Chandoo.org runs a VBA Class that teaches you from scratch, how to build macros to save time & automate your work. We opened our first batch in May this year and had an excellent response. More than 650 students signed up and are now learning VBA each day.
If you want to learn VBA & advanced Excel, this is a very good class to join.
Click here for full information on VBA classes.
About the Author:
Drew Kesler specializes in process automation and data visualization. He currently performs analytics and modeling for the Oil and Gas industry. His most recent projects include using GIS mapping technology to visualize data and enhance interaction across organizations.
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?