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Magnified Time Period on a Gantt Chart

Create a Gantt chart and magnify busier periods of time for better visibility.

Not all projects move at the same pace. Sometimes there is a flurry of activity, and sometimes it's relatively quiet. For those busier periods, it's important to be able to see all of the details to that something doesn't get missed. OnePager Pro lets you create a project Gantt chart where you can magnify different portions of the time axis, zooming into busier periods to show them in greater detail.

Project Gantt chart with magnification applied to the month of May where there are more tasks due.

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If you don't have OnePager Pro, you can download a free trial and follow these step-by-step instructions to build a magnified Gantt chart of your own:

  1. Build a simple project plan in Microsoft Project or Excel:

    Microsoft Project plan.

    We can use Flag20 to decide which tasks should be included in the Gantt chart.

  2. Go to the Add-Ins tab of Microsoft Project or Excel, and click the OnePager button:

    OnePager Pro on the Microsoft Project Add-Ins Tab.

  3. When the Start Screen appears, click New to build a new Gantt chart from your project plan:

    OnePager Pro start screen.

  4. On the Import Wizard, give your chart a name and double-check your other settings. Assuming everything looks good, click the Create new Chart button at the bottom:

    OnePager Pro import wizard.

  5. OnePager will import your selected tasks and milestones from Microsoft Project or Excel and create a chart like the one below. Notice that the month of May is very busy and is a little hard to read in its current form. In the next steps, we'll show you how to magnify the month of May to make those activities easier to track.

    Gantt chart without magnification.

  6. Right-click on the month of May and choose Format from the context menu:

    Right-click on a month to magnify it.

  7. Change the Zoom from 100% to 300%. Tip: you can type in the box; you don't have to use the arrows to change the number:

    Change the magnification for the month of March from 100% to 300%.

    In addition to increasing the magnification, we also changed the Color and the Font for the May time axis cell, which will help it stand out better in the chart.

  8. Click OK and you'll see that the month of May is now three times wider than the other months in the Gantt chart. May is also in a bigger, bolder font, on a dark barkground to differentiate it from the other months that aren't being magnified:

    Gantt chart with magnification applied to the month of May.

  9. For added clarity, you can highlight the entire month of May using a Curtain. To do this, right-click on May again, and choose Insert Curtain:

    Highlight the month of May by inserting a curtain.

  10. The curtain will highlight the month of May from top to the bottom, drawing the audience's attention to your busy period:

    Gantt chart with a magnified time axis, and with the busy period of the project highlighted.

    Curtain colors, text, and transparancy can be customized. Just double-click the curtain to change its formatting.

Customizable

It's really easy to get started! The best part is that you can customize your OnePager Gantt chart to:

  • Adjust the units on the time axis to show bigger or smaller timespans.
  • Show or hide working or non-working time, including nights and weekends.
  • Change colors, symbols, and fonts with conditional formatting.
  • Automatically group tasks into one or more levels of swimlanes by phase, subproject, or any other aspect of your project.

OnePager is the easiest way to magnify different time periods in your Gantt chart. Join the thousands of people just like you who use OnePager today!

Get started today by downloading a free trial, including our world-class tech support.

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