The quick way
- In Excel, select your task table including the header row and press
Ctrl+C(Cmd+Con a Mac). - Click into the paste box above and press
Ctrl+V. You can also paste anywhere on this page that isn’t a text box. - Check the Columns row under the box. Each of your headers is matched to a role (Task, Start, End, Duration and so on); change any that are wrong.
- Fix individual rows in the Edit tasks table. The chart redraws on every change.
- Download a PNG or SVG for free, or an editable PowerPoint or PDF for one credit.
Excel puts copied cells on the clipboard as tab-separated text, which is what the box reads. Nothing is uploaded: the table is read and the chart is drawn by this page in your browser.
How to lay out the sheet
One row per task, one column per piece of information, with a header row on top. Only two things are required: a task name, and either a start and an end date or a start and a duration. Everything else is optional, and the headers people usually type are recognised:
| Column | Headers it recognises | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| Task | Task, Task name, Name, Activity, Item, Deliverable, Description, Event | The bar’s label. Required. |
| Start | Start, Start date, Begin, From, Planned start, Date, When | A date. Leave empty to start after the task it depends on. |
| End | End, Finish, Due, Due date, Deadline, Planned finish, Target date | A date (the last working day of the task). |
| Duration | Duration, Days, Length, Working days, Estimate | 5, 5d, 2w, 1.5 weeks, 1 month. 0 makes a milestone. |
| Owner | Owner, Assigned to, Assignee, Resource, Responsible, Lead, Team | Any name. Shown as a column and usable for colours. |
| % done | % Complete, Percent complete, Progress, % Done | 60%, 60 or 0.6. Done and Not started also work. |
| Depends on | Predecessors, Depends on, Dependencies, After, Blocked by | Row IDs or task names: 3, 4SS, 5FS+2d, Design. |
| Phase | Phase, Stage, Group, Section, Workstream, Epic | Groups tasks under a summary bar. |
| Milestone | Milestone, Type (when a row says Milestone) | Yes / x / true marks a milestone diamond. |
| ID | ID, #, No., WBS, Task ID | What Depends on refers to. Without it, row numbers are used. |
Column order doesn’t matter, extra columns (notes, cost, status) are ignored, and blank rows are skipped. A row with a name and nothing else, followed by dated tasks, is treated as a phase heading, which is how most people already lay out a plan in Excel.
Dates, durations and weekends
Dates can be in any of the formats Excel shows: 2026-11-03, 03/11/2026, 3-Nov-26, Nov 3, 2026, or a raw serial number like 46329 if a cell lost its date format. For slash dates the order is worked out from the column: a value like 25/11/2026 can only be day first. If every date could be read either way (03/04/2026), the page uses your browser’s locale and shows a Read 03/04 as switch so you can flip it.
Durations are working days. 5, 5d and 5 days all mean five working days; 2w is ten; 1 month is twenty. Weekends are skipped by default and you can add England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or US federal holidays (2026 to 2028, from gov.uk and opm.gov), or your own list, from the Holidays menu.
Dependencies
Put predecessors in a Depends on or Predecessors column, as row IDs or task names separated by commas. Finish-to-start is the default. 4SS starts with task 4, 4FF finishes with it, and 4FS+2d waits two working days after it. A task with a dependency and no start date starts the working day after its predecessor ends, and if you move the predecessor later the task moves with it. A task’s own start date is never pulled earlier.
Why not use Excel’s own chart?
Excel has no Gantt chart type. Microsoft’s own instructions build one by hand from a stacked bar chart: chart the start dates and durations as two series, set the first series to no fill so only the duration bars show, then reverse the task axis so the first task is at the top. It works, but dependencies, milestones, phases, weekends and progress all have to be faked with more series and formatting, and the date axis needs fixing every time the plan moves. Pasting the same rows here gets you all of those from the data you already have.
Paste your rows into the tool above. Charts, editing, PNG and SVG are free with no sign-up. Editable PowerPoint and PDF cost one credit per chart (10 for £5).
Related: Turn an Excel file into a Gantt chart · An editable Gantt chart in PowerPoint · Make a timeline from Excel