Intro

So first of all, what Gantt chart is? and why should you use it?
Gantt chart is bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, this chart lists all the tasks we need to perform in order to complete the project, by doing this type of bar chart we can get a clear view of our project dependencies and make better planning decisions.

How To

In this post I'll create the Gantt using Google Spreadsheets, but you can use any type of "Excel" like program for that.
We will start by adding table with 3 columns:

Task, Start Date, End Date

Next we will add another table with only dates

Now the idea is we want to color only the cells in the second table which the current date is between the start and the end dates from our first table,
And for that we will use Conditional Formatting, Go to Format -> Conditional Formatting

We want to apply to the entire range of the second table, with the rule: Custom Formula

=AND(E$1 >= $B2, E$1<=$C2)

Note that your columns might be different, the idea is we want to check if our date (E$1) is between the start and end date ($B2,$C2), if you are not familiar with the $ you can read more about it here

you can also play with the colors for your liking.

and now we have something that looks like this:

And lets add the current date indicator, for that we will need to add another conditional formatting on our dates, with this formula:

=E$1=TODAY()

And by using this formula if the date in the header is the same as TODAY() the current cell will get highlighted:

And we have our basic Gantt Chart :)
You can see this spreadsheet here

Enjoy

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