GANTT and other project planning chart types

Roman Koch's Manager's Toolbox for PowerPoint allows you to create Gantt and other specialized chart types within PowerPoint. Here's some information that he posted on the PowerPoint newsgroup recently:

Project plans, product comparisons, scenario evaluations or process maps - managers need to communicate their decisions and plans, and many managers use Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to transport their message to stakeholders and decision-makers. The Managers Toolbox for Microsoft PowerPoint is an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 and 2003 that helps managers to create typical management charts in seconds. For example, to create a Gantt (timeline) chart, the manager does the following:

1. Create a slide with a 3-column table. Enter the task description in column 1, the start date in column 2 and the end date in column 3.
2. Add a new line to the table for each project activity.
3. For milestones, enter the start date only.
4. Select the Gantt Chart command from the Management menu that is available when the Managers Toolbox is installed.

The Gantt Chart command then creates a new slide with a timeline chart. Time period columns are added automatically, and a duration bar is added for each activity. For milestones, diamond shapes are created. The chart can easily be modified using standard PowerPoint drawing commands. The same approach is used for process maps, portfolio charts and profile charts - set up the input table, add table rows, and run the appropriate chart command. Additional time-saving commands help managers to create agenda slides with hyperlinks automatically, build traffic light reports in a second, add watermarks to slides, add numbers in shapes or tables, and select shapes based on colour, size or line style. The Managers Toolbox for Microsoft PowerPoint comes with an extensive presentation that provides not only usage instructions, sample tables and sample charts, but also best practices for convincing presentations. The Managers Toolbox for Microsoft PowerPoint leaves no tracks in the presentation files. Presentations created with the Managers Toolbox can be used and modified without the Managers Toolbox. The Managers Toolbox for Microsoft PowerPoint is provided as Shareware. The unregistered version has some limitations, but nevertheless provides fully functional charts and productivity commands. The limitations are removed upon registration.

More information is available on the product homepage:

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