How to Create a Simple Weekly Gantt Chart in Excel: A Step-by-Step Guide

A gantt chart makes it easy to visualize your project plan over time—something a to-do list or Kanban boards simply can’t do.

If you’ve never made a gantt chart before, you might not know where to start. Microsoft Excel is a go-to tool for many gantt chart beginners because they have easy access to it and are already familiar with its features. 

You can spin up a basic gantt chart in Excel that shows what needs to happen when and who’s responsible for the work. Just be prepared to invest a lot of time keeping your team and timeline updated as your project changes and work progresses.

In this article, we’ll share 3 different options you can use to create a simple gantt chart, depending on the time you can afford to spend and the features you’re looking for.

• Make a weekly gantt chart from scratch in Excel (30 minutes)
• Create an automated gantt chart using our Excel template (15 minutes)
• Build a collaborative gantt chart with drag and drop scheduling (5 minutes)

How to make a weekly gantt chart in Excel

Now let’s walk through the steps for building an Excel gantt chart from the ground up. This tutorial guides you through how to do an Excel gantt chart that maps out dates on your project timeline. 

You can choose to display your Excel gantt chart in weekly or monthly intervals, and we’ll also show you how to group tasks into phases and add milestones to your project.

Note: We performed the following steps in Microsoft Excel 365 for Mac, but the basic workflow should be the same on a PC or in any version of Excel with minor changes.

1. Add project tasks and dates to the Excel worksheet

• Create columns for Task Name, Start Date, End Date, and Duration, and fill those cells with the basic details for your project tasks. 
• Format these columns as follows:some text
  • Task Name = Text format
  • Start Date and End Date = Date format
  • Duration = Number format

2. Organize your Excel gantt chart into phases with subtasks

• Add a row before the first task in each project phase.
• Enter the following dates for each task group:some text
  • Start Date  = Start date of your first task or milestone in the group or phase
  • End Date = End date for the last task or milestone in the group or phase

3. Apply an automatic formula to calculate task duration

• Use a simple formula to subtract the start date from the end date so Excel will calculate the length of each task in your gantt chart. We entered =C2-B2 into the Duration field for our first task.
• Place your mouse on the right corner of D2 until you see a black + sign and double-click or drag your mouse down to paste the formula in the remaining cells in column D.

Tip: If you started in different cells in your worksheet, be sure to adjust this formula accordingly.

3. Insert a Stacked Bar Chart from the Insert menu

• Click the Insert tab, and select the bar chart icon.
• Choose Stacked Bar from the 2-D Bar section to add a chart to your Excel worksheet. This chart type most closely resembles a gantt chart.

4. Set up your Excel gantt chart data

• You should see a blank chart in your Excel worksheet now. Right-click the chart, and choose Select Data.
• Click the plus sign (+) under the Legend entries section to add the first data set. Name it "Start Date." Then click on the Y values field, and select the data in the Start Date column.
• Repeat this process to add a second entry called “Duration,” making sure to select the data in the Duration column for the Y values. Click the Horizontal Axis Labels field, and select the entire Task Name column.

Tip: Make sure the Show data in hidden rows and columns checkbox is ticked so your Excel gantt chart will still work if you decide to hide any of the columns or rows in the worksheet.

5. Add the project title to your chart

• Double-click the Chart Title textbox to select the full title. 
• Enter the name of your project to replace the generic placeholder text.

6. Change the chart date range to project start and end dates

• Copy the Start Date for the first task in your project into a blank cell below your task list.
• Format that cell as a number rather than a date. 
• Repeat this process for the End Date for the last task in your project.

Tip: Excel stores dates as numbers. In our example, Excel converts the Start Date for our first task from 9/1/22 to 44805.00, while the End Date for our last task becomes 44865.00 instead of 10/31/22.

• Now select the horizontal axis of your gantt chart, right-click, and choose Format Axis.
• Under Bounds, there are fields for Minimum and Maximum. These are the first and last “dates” in the chart.
• Change the Minimum value to the number you got when you converted the first task date into a number and the Maximum value to the number for your last task date.
• Hit Enter to remove the extra time from the beginning of your chart.

7. Format the horizontal axis as dates

• If the labels on the horizontal axis of your gantt chart show numbers instead of dates, click the Number section of the Format Axis window to expand it.
• Change the category from Number to Date. Now the horizontal axis will show readable dates.

8. Set your Excel gantt chart at weekly intervals

• Find the Major and Minor fields under Units in the Axis Options section. These determine the timeline intervals for your Excel gantt chart.
• Enter 7.0 into the Major field to set the project timeline in your Excel gantt chart at weekly intervals.

Tip: Want a monthly gantt chart? Set the Major field at 30.0 for monthly intervals.

9. Reorder tasks, and move the date axis to the top of your chart

• Select the vertical axis, right-click, and choose Format Axis.
• Tick the Categories in reverse order checkbox. This also moves the date axis to the top of the chart where it’s a little more useful.

10. Format your stacked bar chart to look like a gantt chart

• Click on the first portion of a taskbar with 2 colors to select all of the bars in your first data series.
• Then click the Paint Bucket tab, and expand the Fill section.
• Select No fill to remove the bars that precede your task start dates.

11. Change taskbar colors for a customized look

• Click on a single bar twice. Don’t double-click it—click it once to highlight all the bars in that color, then click it again to highlight a single bar.
• Click the Paint Bucket icon, and choose the color you want from the color fill options.
• Repeat this process for the rest of the bars in your newly made gantt chart to change their colors.

Differentiate project phases from subtasks by giving phase taskbars a neutral color, such as gray.

Color milestones yellow or gold in your gantt chart so they stand out easily from other tasks.

Congrats! You’ve created your own weekly gantt chart in Excel. 

That was probably a few more steps than you bargained for—especially if you have to do that every time you need to create a gantt chart for a new project. 

Our premade Excel gantt chart template can save you tons of time by organizing your project plan and tackling the tedious scheduling work for you!

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Download a free Excel gantt chart template

Download our basic Excel template or explore more free gantt chart templates.

Use this Excel gantt chart to simplify complex projects into an easy-to-follow plan and track the status of tasks as work progresses. It’s great for scheduling simple projects that don’t require real-time collaboration.

Before you get started, check out this quick Excel vs. TeamGantt comparison to see how you can save time and effort managing gantt charts in TeamGantt.

TeamGantt’s free Excel gantt chart template enables you to:

• Customize the gantt chart to fit your project needs
• Set up new tasks
• Assign task dates and team members
• Automate task durations and timeframes
• Track task progress

You can customize our Excel template to view and manage projects over any time period, whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Simply plug in your tasks, dates, and resources, and you'll have a presentation-quality Excel gantt chart.

Be sure to update the percent complete as work progresses to stay on top of project tracking.

Watch our Excel gantt chart template tutorial on YouTube to learn how to customize it for your projects.

Build a collaborative gantt chart in minutes
with TeamGantt

Gantt charts that are simple, beautiful, and super-easy to manage and update is exactly what TeamGantt was designed from the ground up to do.

Ready to get started? Follow these easy steps to set up your first project in TeamGantt.

1. Go to teamgantt.com/signup to sign up for your free account to get started.

2. Once you log in, go to My Projects in the sidebar, and click + New Project, then Create New Project.

3. Give your project a name, and choose a project template to get you started if you want. Choose your default project view and the days of the week you want to be able to schedule work in your project. Then click Create New Project.

4. Your project is created, and you’re ready to start adding your tasks! Once you’ve added your tasks to the task list, just click and drag each taskbar to set the dates and duration.

5. If you have tasks that can’t begin until another task is complete, you can add a dependency to your gantt chart to make sure those tasks are always done in the proper order. Simply click the dot to the right of the first task, and drag the dependency to the dependent task.

You’re all done! Congratulations on creating your first project in TeamGantt!

Get started with TeamGantt today

You can create a beautiful project plan in just minutes with TeamGantt. And because everything happens online, it's easy to track project progress and collaborate with your team in real time.

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