Did you Know: You Can Easily Format Your Project Plans?

Here is a very quick tip that you and your clients may appreciate:

You most likely know that using the Filter or Grouping options is one way to format your Gantt Chart.  Another option is to leverage the out of the box ‘Text Styles’ formatting.  For example, let us look at all tasks on the critical path.

1. Click on Format

2. Select Text Styles

3. Select ‘Critical Tasks’ from the dropdown

4. Choose the color and font style for the selected tasks and click OK.

Now, all the rows that are ‘critical’ (thus on the critical path) have been formatted with your selection.

Example:  Format the Text Styles with Red, Italics font and see the outcome.  Now you may be asking…what happens if the critical path changes?  Microsoft Project will automatically change the formatting for the critical path.  Thus, as the project is progressing and if the critical path changes the formatting of those tasks will automatically change too.  This is a time-saver.

In the project planning phase, you can use the Format -Text Styles option together with the Network Diagram to confirm you are seeing the expected results. 

In the execution phase, you can use this option to see the direct changes to the critical path and overall project – and take corrective action if necessary.

You can do the same formatting for the Highlight filter (and even change the color of the highlight filter).

We hope this quick tip helps.