A project timeline slide for PowerPoint

What a good timeline slide shows

• Phases as summary bars, so the shape of the project reads at a glance.
• Milestones as diamonds with their dates: sign-offs, go-lives, contract dates.
• Today as a line, so everyone sees what should be finished by now.
• Progress on each bar if you are reporting status, and nothing else.

Owner columns, every dependency arrow and day-by-day scales belong in the working plan. On an executive slide they are noise.

Step by step

1. Paste the plan. Copy your task rows from Excel, Smartsheet or Project (with headers) into the box above.
2. Cut it down. In the edit table, delete detailed rows you don’t need on the slide, or start a separate list with just phases and milestones. Around 10 to 15 rows reads well on one slide.
3. Set the scale. Choose Weeks for a plan of a few months, Months for a year, Quarters for a programme. Auto picks the finest scale that fits.
4. Tidy the display. Under Show and hide, turn off the owner column and dependency arrows; keep the today line and % done for a status update. Colour by phase.
5. Pick a theme. Boardroom suits most corporate templates; Blueprint is dark for dark slide masters; Print is greyscale for handouts.
6. Export. PowerPoint gives you editable shapes to drop into your own deck; PDF gives a fixed page (A4 or Letter) for attaching to an email or a board pack.

A minimal timeline to paste

This is enough for a one-slide project timeline. Copy it, paste it above, and replace the names and dates:

Task	Start	End	Milestone	% Complete
Discovery	02/11/2026	20/11/2026		100%
Contract signed	20/11/2026	20/11/2026	Yes
Design	23/11/2026	18/12/2026		40%
Build	04/01/2027	26/02/2027
Testing	01/03/2027	19/03/2027
Go live	22/03/2027	22/03/2027	Yes

Rows marked Yes in the Milestone column are drawn as diamonds with their date beside them. A duration of 0, or Type → Milestone in the edit table, does the same.

Common mistakes on timeline slides

• Too many rows. If the slide needs a second page, it is a working plan, not a timeline. Keep the detail in the plan and show phases here.
• Dates nobody can read. Use a scale where the header labels are legible from the back of the room: months for a year-long project, not days.
• Colour without meaning. Colour by phase or by owner, and keep the legend on, so a colour always says something.
• A stale today line. Export again before each meeting; the line moves to the current date on its own.

Keeping it current

The chart is saved in your browser, so next month you can come back, change the % done and any dates that moved, and export again. Because the today line moves on its own, a fresh export each reporting cycle shows progress against the date without editing a slide by hand. Downloading the same unchanged chart twice costs nothing; an updated chart uses one credit.

If you only need an image for an email or a wiki page, the PNG and SVG downloads are free and use the same layout.

Paste your phases and milestones 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: An editable Gantt chart in PowerPoint · Make a timeline from Excel · Make a Gantt chart from Excel