Create Your Own Timeline in PowerPoint

Are you looking for a simple, yet efficient PowerPoint timeline to include in your presentations? Look no further! Download our free PowerPoint timeline and read step-by-step instructions on how to use and edit our free PowerPoint template. 


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If you have a plan, and you want it to succeed, the first thing that you should do is sit down and map out the steps you need to take in order to accomplish it. After your planning process, the steps you end up with should be made into a timeline. 

A timeline is an essential part of your plan and it can help you stay on track by allowing you to visualize tasks and dates, and creating an easy-to-understand roadmap for your project. But where and how to start? Building a timeline means that you’re going to take all of the information that you have about your project -including the tasks, the start date, and the end date-, and you’re going to set up a schedule of when everything is going to be done. 

There are several different tools that you can use to create timelines. But surely, one of the handiest tools you can use to create simple, short timelines is Microsoft PowerPoint. Building a timeline using PowerPoint can be super helpful in case you need to display your plan to your team or to your clients and include them in your presentations. 

Download the Template and Open the Powerpoint File


Click here to download our free timeline template in PowerPoint


Download and open the template. You can add a title for your presentation as well as a quick description. 


To add your own information, simply double-click on the text in the slide and enter your own title (what your timeline represents), and the names of each task. In case you want to customize the design of your timeline, you can do so by heading over to the Insert tab, clicking on the Smart Art icon, then Process, and selecting your favorite timeline style from the menu. 


Customize Your Timeline in Powerpoint


You can continue by adding your information to the PowerPoint timeline. To do so, double-click on the [Text] boxes located in the slide, or you can simply type the information in the floating text box right from your slide and rename the tasks. 

You can add more events by clicking on the + sign, or you can achieve the opposite by clicking on the − symbol. Then, you can simply click on the arrows to change the order of your events, if need be.



Right-click the Instagantt logo, select change image and add a new logo to your timeline. Also, in the Font group, you have the ability to adjust the font size or color, and in the Paragraph group, you can change the alignment of the text.

PowerPoint Timeline: Customize Colors


Download Our Free PowerPoint Timeline Template

Use Instagantt to Create a Robust Timeline


You’ve learned how to edit and how to create your own timeline using PowerPoint. But let’s be honest, PowerPoint can be useful when you only have a few steps to illustrate. What happens when you’re managing much more complex projects? You’re going to need Instagantt, a project management software designed to build timelines from scratch. Instagtantt provides you with powerful collaboration features that will make it so much easier to create and to share your project plans with teammates, clients, and stakeholders. 

Did you know that Gantt charts are perfect for creating timelines? That’s right. Gantt charts software are excellent tools for building and managing timelines since they allow you to create tasks and to schedule them accordingly. Moreover, they help to effectively manage and execute projects -no matter how complex or large they are, throughout their entire lifecycle. 

Instagantt: Create Timelines in minutes

Sign up for a free trial and give it a try. You can start by creating a free account here.


These are just some of the amazing options and features you’ll be able to use when using Instagantt to create timelines: 


- Beautiful UX and UI design

- Simple, intuitive interface

- Tasks and subtasks

- Baselines and Critical path

- Risks and priorities

- Custom view and custom fields

- Dependencies and milestones

- Team collaboration: task assignment and notification options

- Public snapshot sharing options

- Diverse exporting options: Excel, image and PDF

- Drag & drop

- Custom colors for progress bars

- Estimated and actual costs

- Gantt, Workload, Board, and Kanban view


With Instagantt, you’ll be creating professional, presentation-ready Gantt charts in virtually no time at all.



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