What the PowerPoint file contains
The download is a widescreen (16:9, 13.33 × 7.5 inch) .pptx. Each slide is drawn with PowerPoint’s own objects:
- Task bars are rounded rectangles; progress is a second rectangle on top.
- Milestones are diamonds, and phases are a bar with two small triangles.
- Dependency arrows are line shapes with an arrowhead.
- Task names, owners, dates and the header are separate text boxes in Arial.
Bars and milestones are named after their task, so PowerPoint’s Selection Pane (Home → Arrange → Selection Pane) lists entries like Bar: Wireframes and Milestone: Launch. That makes it easy to find one bar, recolour it, nudge it, or delete it.
Long plans
A slide holds about 18 rows at a readable size. Longer plans are split across as many slides as needed. Every slide repeats the title and the date header, uses the same time scale and column widths, and is numbered (2 of 3), so the slides line up when you flick between them. Dependency arrows are drawn when both tasks are on the same slide.
To keep a big plan on one slide, collapse detail first: switch the scale to Months or Quarters, keep phases and milestones, and delete low-level rows in the edit table before exporting.
Editing after export
- Recolour a phase: click one bar, then hold
Shiftand click the others; set Shape Fill once. - Move everything:
Ctrl+Aselects every object on the slide; group them (Ctrl+G) to move or resize the chart as one piece. - Retype a label: click the text box and type. Text boxes don’t wrap, so long names stay on one line.
- Change the font: select all, then pick a font in the Home tab. Arial is used so the file looks the same on Windows and Mac.
If the plan itself changes, it is usually quicker to edit the rows here and export again than to move bars by hand. Re-exporting an unchanged chart is free; a changed chart is a new export.
Other ways to get a Gantt chart into PowerPoint
Insert a picture. Download the free PNG or SVG from this page and insert it on a slide. It looks the same, but it is one image: to change a date you change the plan and insert it again.
Build it by hand. A table or SmartArt timeline works for five tasks. Past that, keeping bars aligned to dates by eye gets slow and drifts every time the plan moves.
Use an add-in. PowerPoint add-ins such as Lucen Timeline (formerly Office Timeline) build timelines inside PowerPoint and are sold as yearly licences per user: on its pricing page in November 2026, paid plans were $9, $17 or $21 per user per month, billed annually, with Excel import listed on the Plus plan. If you make timelines every week inside PowerPoint, an add-in may suit you. If you make one now and then from a spreadsheet, credits cost less: £5 for 10 exports, with no subscription and no install.
Paste your rows above, then press PowerPoint. Charts, editing, PNG and SVG are free with no sign-up. Editable PowerPoint and PDF cost one credit per chart (10 for £5).
Related: A project timeline slide for PowerPoint · Make a Gantt chart from Excel · Free online Gantt chart maker