The Gantt Chart view is the most commonly used view in Project. It lists the tasks in your project, and illustrates their relationship to one another and the schedule using Gantt bars. The Gantt Chart view is the default view for new projects.
Note: To access the Gantt Chart view, on the View menu, click Gantt Chart.
In this article
Use the task list
You can list each of your project's tasks in the grid portion on the left side of the Gantt Chart view, and then organize them into a hierarchy of summary tasks and subtasks. You can also link tasks together, to show task dependencies.
For more information about adding to the task list and organizing your project's tasks, see the following articles:
Use the chart
In addition to the grid portion of the view, the Gantt Chart view also provides an illustrated version of your task list, with Gantt bars that show the duration of your project's tasks across a timeline. This part of the Gantt Chart view is called the chart. For each task, the associated Gantt bar begins at the start date, and ends at the finish date. If you have linked tasks together, the Gantt bars are connected on the chart with link lines.
Zoom in and out
The timeline units for the right portion of the Gantt Chart view are displayed at the top of the chart. By default, Project displays two units of time. You can adjust these time units to display up to three units of time, and you can change it so that different time units are displayed. For example, you can zoom out to a bigger picture of your project's tasks by displaying Years and Months, or you can zoom in to see the exact start and finish dates for your project's tasks by changing the timescale to Weeks and Days. For more information about adjusting the timescale of the Gantt Chart view, see Change the timescale in a Project view.
Change colors and add text
Project provides a lot of flexibility in the way that Gantt bars are displayed in the Gantt Chart view.
You can:
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Change the color, shape, or pattern of Gantt bars.
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Create a new type of Gantt bar, such as one that shows available slack or delayed tasks.
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Add text to Gantt bars.
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Display task names for individual Gantt bars on a summary task bar.
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Change the height of Gantt bars.
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Change the appearance of link lines between Gantt bars.
All of these changes are described in Format the bar chart of a Gantt Chart view.
Why aren't my Gantt bars moving?
Gantt bars are displayed using the start and finish dates for the tasks in your project. They don't move to reflect the progress of tasks. Instead, you can use the gridline for the current date to see where tasks should be according to the schedule.
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Right-click anywhere in the chart portion of the Gantt Chart view and then click Gridlines.
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In the Line to change box, select Current Date.
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In the Normal area, use the Type box and the Color box to change the how the gridline looks.
