How to Make a Gantt Chart in Word

Word has no Gantt chart type, but you can build one from a stacked bar chart or draw one with a table and shaded cells. This guide walks through both, then shows how to make the chart in Preceden and insert it into your document as an image instead.

Set up your data

Start with one row per task, with its start date and how many days it takes. Here is a small website launch plan we'll use as the example:

Task	Start	Duration
Research	3/2/2026	11
Design	3/16/2026	18
Build	4/6/2026	39
Testing	5/11/2026	11
Launch	5/26/2026	1

The duration is the number of days from a task's start date to its end date, so Research runs from March 2 to March 13.

Option 1: Build a stacked bar chart

This is the classic method. Each task gets two bars stacked end to end: an invisible one that pushes the visible bar out to the task's start date, and a visible one as long as the task.

1. Click where you want the chart in your document. On the Insert tab, click Chart, choose Bar, then Stacked Bar, and click OK.
2. Word opens a small spreadsheet of sample data. Type your tasks over the categories in column A, put "Start" and your start dates in column B, and put "Duration" and your durations in column C.
3. Right-click the column D header and choose Delete, so the chart has only two series. If your last task is missing from the chart, drag the corner of the outlined data range down to include it. Then close the spreadsheet.
4. Click one of the Start bars to select that series, right-click it and choose Format Data Series. Under Fill, choose No fill.
5. Word lists the tasks from the bottom up. To fix that, right-click the task names, choose Format Axis and check Categories in reverse order. This also moves the dates to the top of the chart; to put them back at the bottom, choose At maximum category under Horizontal axis crosses.
6. Click the legend and press Delete, since "Start" and "Duration" mean little to your readers.

The bars that remain are your Gantt chart, but they probably sit at the far right of a date axis that starts in 1900. Word stores the chart's dates as numbers of days, as Excel does, so click the dates along the axis and, under Format Axis, set the Minimum bound to the number for your first start date. For 3/2/2026 that is 46083. To find yours, enter a date in an empty cell of the chart's spreadsheet and format it as General.

To change a date later, right-click the chart and choose Edit Data. The chart can't show dependencies between tasks or how much of a task is complete.

If you already have the chart in Excel, you can copy it there and paste it into your document instead. Our guide to making a Gantt chart in Excel walks through the same method in Excel itself.

Option 2: Draw it with a table and shaded cells

This method fits a Gantt chart into the flow of a document, such as a project proposal, at the cost of shading the cells by hand.

1. On the Insert tab, click Table and insert one with a row for each task plus a heading row, and a column for the task names plus one for each week or month of your plan.
2. Type the task names down the first column and the weeks or months across the heading row.
3. For each task, select the cells under the weeks or months it runs through, then on the Table Design tab click Shading and pick a color.

The shaded cells aren't tied to any dates, so when the schedule changes, you have to shade and clear the cells yourself. Each cell is a whole week or month, so a task that starts midweek still fills the full cell.

Looking for a Word Gantt chart template? This table can become your own. Once the headings and colors look right, clear out the task names and shading, then click File, then Save As, and choose Word Template as the file type. Your next plan can start from it.

Option 3: Make it in Preceden and insert it as an image

If your plan has more than a handful of tasks, or you need dependencies, you can make the Gantt chart in Preceden and put it in your document as a picture.

Create a new timeline with the Gantt Chart layout, then add your tasks with their start and end dates. You can type them in one at a time, use the Bulk Editor, which works like a spreadsheet, or import an Excel or CSV file as our CSV and Excel import guide describes. Importing is part of our paid plans; on the free plan you can create timelines with up to 10 events each.

Once the tasks are in, you can make a task start when another one ends, shade each bar by its percent complete and add milestones. Our guide to creating Gantt charts covers each of these. Preceden is built for communicating a schedule rather than running the work, so you can't assign tasks to people or calculate a critical path in it.

To get the image, click Share above your timeline, choose Image and click Download Now to save it as a PNG. Then in Word, click Insert, then Pictures, and choose the file. The picture is a snapshot of your chart, so when the plan changes, update it in Preceden and insert the new image in place of the old one. Our guide to printing and exporting your timeline covers the image settings and the PDF option.

Which one should you use?

• If you want a chart Word can redraw when you edit a date, use a stacked bar chart.
• If the chart has to sit inside a document's text and you plan by the week or month, use a table with shaded cells.
• If you need dependencies, progress shading or a chart you can also share with a link, make it in Preceden and insert the image.

Making a timeline of dates rather than a schedule of tasks? See our guide to creating a timeline in Word. Building the chart for a presentation instead? See our guide to making a Gantt chart in PowerPoint.