Producing informative outputs is an important part of project management. In particular, the ability to communicate schedule details in the form of a Gantt chart is vital. Microsoft Project offers good support in this area, allowing the display of headers, footers, legends, annotations, graphics and the easy control of columns. The following are the usual issues to think about.

Time Scales

To ensure that the Gantt chart fills the page or pagess, make sure that the "Fit Timescale to End of Page' option is set. You will find this under on the "File - Page Setup - Views" tab. To control the number of pages used, select an approximate scale for the Gantt chart before you attempt to preview the output. You can use the magnifying glass toolbar buttons for this.

Columns

Only the columns that are fully exposed on the screen will print. This gives you the means to control this aspect of the output.

Headers, Footers and Legend

Use the Header, Footer and Legend tabs under "File - Page Setup" in order to control what appears in these areas. You can use the drop-down menus on those tabs to force the appearance of information you might have entered under "File - Properties". This includes the project title, manager's name and more. Using this facility means that you can change the data just once under "File -Properties", and have it updated in all of the printouts immediately. With respect to legends, note that "left", "centre" and "right" refer only to the rectangular box to the left of the legend area. You can place a graphic in any one of these three areas by using the last button on the right in the Page Setup area. A company logo is a common choice.

Annotations

Use the ‘Drawing' toolbar to place text boxes, arrows and other symbols on the Gantt chart. These will then appear on the print-out. To suppress the printing of the drawings without deleting them, use "Format - Layout". Be aware that these drawings do not appear on the printout precisely as they do on the screen and you may have to move objects about to get it looking good. Also, when you re-scale the Gantt chart, the drawings do not scale with them.

Scaling

Don't use the scaling options that appear under the ‘Page' tab under "File - Page Setup" as your primary means of controlling the horizontal scale. If you do, you will affect the vertical scale at the same time and might cause a very narrow diagram to appear! Rather, use this mechanism only after you have taken care of the horizontal scaling as discussed earlier. You will find it useful in improving the vertical dimension.

The following is a sample output from Microsoft Project: