Make a Gantt chart from Excel
Copy your task rows out of Excel, Google Sheets or anywhere else, paste them in, and get a real Gantt chart with dependencies and the critical path through them. It runs in your browser, so nothing you paste is sent anywhere.
How to make a Gantt chart in Excel
You can, and it is a known trick: insert a stacked bar chart, plot the start dates as an invisible first series, stack the durations on top, then reverse the axis so it reads downward. It works, and it stops working the moment a date moves, because those bars are a picture of your dates rather than a schedule that understands them. Nothing in the chart knows that one task waits for another. The box above does the same job in a paste, and it does read the dependencies.
Gantt chart software, or a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet is the right place to collect a task list and the wrong place to keep a schedule. As soon as one task depends on another, the spreadsheet makes you the scheduling engine: move one date and you move the rest by hand, every time. Software reflows them and tells you which tasks actually control the finish date. Until you need that, a spreadsheet plus this page is a perfectly reasonable arrangement, and it costs nothing.
An example Gantt chart
Use a sample plan, above, loads a small project with its dependencies already wired, so you can see what the chart looks like before you paste anything of your own. It is also the fastest way to check how the page reads dates, since day/month and month/day are indistinguishable until a day above 12 settles it.
Reading a programme rather than a plan
If what you were sent is called a programme and arrived as .mpp or .xer, it is a schedule out of Microsoft Project or Primavera P6 rather than a spreadsheet, and pasting it will not work. The Schedule Health Check reads both formats directly and scores them against the DCMA 14-point checks, which is what a client or a main contractor is usually asking for when they ask whether the programme is sound.
Frequently asked questions
Does my data get uploaded anywhere?
No. The whole thing runs in your browser. What you paste is never sent to Onplana or anyone else, which is why there is no sign-up, no email gate and no captcha on this page.
How do I make a Gantt chart from Excel?
Select your task rows in Excel or Google Sheets, copy them, and paste into the box above. A header row helps but is not required: columns named Task, Start and Finish (or End) are picked up automatically, and so are Duration, Progress and Depends on.
What if my dates are DD/MM instead of MM/DD?
The tool reads the whole column to decide. If any date has a day above 12 that settles it for every row. If the column is genuinely ambiguous, it tells you which reading it used and gives you a switch, because a plan that silently shifts by months is worse than one that asks.
Do I need dates at all?
No. Paste a bare list of task names and each one is placed after the last, one day each, so you get a working skeleton to adjust. Add a Duration column and it will use that instead.
Can I keep the chart?
Download the cleaned-up plan as CSV, or open it in a free Onplana workspace where it becomes a real schedule with a critical path, baselines and dependencies. If you would rather work offline, Onplana Schedule is a free desktop app for Windows and Mac that opens Microsoft Project files and spreadsheets the same way.
Working from a Microsoft Project file rather than a spreadsheet? The Schedule Health Check reads .mpp and .xml directly, and Onplana's Gantt includes the critical path and baselines on the free plan.