Custom Text Fields in Microsoft Project

Adding a Custom Text Field to Microsoft Project

There are two easy ways to add a custom text field to your Microsoft Project plan:

1. Scroll to the far-right side of your Microsoft Project plan, and you should see a column called Add New Column. Left-click on the column header to add the new field at the right edge of your project plan:

   

2. If you prefer to add your custom field to the middle of your project plan instead of on the right edge, right-click on any of your existing column headings and choose the Insert Column option. The custom text field will be added in a new column to the left of the column that is currently selected:

   

3. Regardless of where you decide to insert the new column, you'll get a dropdown of all of the available Microsoft Project fields. Scroll down to the "Ts" or press the letter T on your keyboard, where you will see 30 custom text fields available:

   

   In this example, we'll insert Text1 into the new column for custom fields.

Renaming a Custom Text Field by Changing the Column Header Title

Once you have inserted a custom text field into a Microsoft Project, you might want to rename it to something more meaningful than the standard field name. To change the title that appears on the column header:

1. Right-click on the column header for your custom field. When the dropdown appears, select Field Settings:

   

2. On the Field Settings screen, click into the Title field and change the title of your column heading to whatever you want:

   

3. Click OK, and Microsoft Project will rename the title of your column heading:

   

4. If you ever need to see what the original name of your field was before you changed the title, you can hover your mouse on the column heading, and Microsoft Project will pop up both the field name and the field title: