Creating a comparative timeline chart in Calc?

Hi there,

I have a list of dates (start and end dates) with corresponding labels. I want to create a timeline chart such as this one with dates as the x-axis and bars for each label to be shown at the corresponding period of time. Is this possible and if so, how?

TIA

SoWhy

That type of chart is called a Gantt Diagram. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart for more info.

You can not make Timeline/Gantt charts with LO. Try this free Gantt program. It might do the trick otherwise you might settle for a program like MS Project.

Gnumeric has a chart type called “Min-Max” which is under construction, no help, no real description. If you want to experiment it might be for you.

Note that ODF (v1.2, 19.15) does specify details for a chart:class attribute of chart:gantt and gives details (p.331 and p.336) of how a Gantt chart is to be implemented. Currently this part of ODF does not appear to be implemented by LO. ODF v1.0 and v1.1 also specified the same chart type.

Hi SoWhy, take a look to attached file, maybe a point to began.

GráficosBarrasApiladasHorizontales_ChartBarStackedHorizontal.ods

IMHO Gantt charts in Calc or more often in Excel are a nightmare in terms of wasting time and still not having what is needed. I have seen so many people wasting a lot of time. Creating a Gantt chart in Calc or Excel was never an option for me.

In my strife to get rid of MS as much as possible, I looked around to open source SW replacing MS Project but did not find a really good one yet.

The best I found is LibreProject which was called before OpenProject. Accidentially or purposely???

The GanttProject mentioned by @horst, was new to me. (Thanks horst!) A first very quick glance on the demo video gave the impression that it is worthwhile to install and test the program.

My comparison standard is always MS Project because I used this program intensively. It is good. Maybe the best MS created. But there are also a lot of features in, which I never used. However, handling of the Gantt Charts, scheduling, rescheduling, splitting of tasks, linking various projects, and the import and export to Excel are great.

As for an enhancement request concerning Calc, I would not forward it. It will overload Calc and starting with a new Office component for scheduling will overload our devs.They do a great job with the current 6 components and have to fix quite a number of bugs and work on many enhancement requests.

Maybe LibO can put things together with LibreProject or the GanttProject to ensure a good import and export functionality to and from Calc. This something that I regards as feasible and also desirable.

But coming back to @SoWhy’s question, I heavily recommend him to follow the hint from @horst and try GanttProject or the LibreProject I mentioned. I expect that both are far from MS Project but much better than what can be created in Calc.

Hi @SoWhy,

Per @horst, LO doesn’t currently support Gantt charts, however this might be a useful feature to add to LibreOffice. I don’t see any bugs filed about this feature in the bug tracker, so please consider filing an enhancement bug and provide as much information about this new feature as possible. Don’t forget to mark your bug as an ‘enhancement’. The QA team will be happy to help you triage your feature request in the bugtracker.

Please post a link to any bugs you file in a comment below using the format “fdo#123456”.

Thanks!