Alternatively, you can add a column by clicking the Add New Column heading on the far right of a table. Then, in the drop-down list that appears, choose the field you want to add. To insert a column, right-click the table heading and choose Insert Column ( Changing Table Contents). You can edit any column’s settings to wrap its contents ( Changing Table Contents).įast and easy column changes.
The Task Name column automatically wraps text to show the full task name in the current width of the column. Project makes it easier to find your place in a table by highlighting the row ID and column heading for the selected cell, like Excel has always done. The status bar also has icons for displaying the most common views, like the Gantt Chart, Task Usage, Team Planner, and Resource Sheet. Dragging the Zoom slider on the status bar to the left or right adjusts the timescale in a view. For example, if you paste an indented task list from Word or an email message into Project, the program can keep the formatting from the original document and automatically use the indenting to create tasks at the appropriate outline level. You can now copy and paste between Project and other programs without losing formatting ( Copying Information). The Gantt Chart style gallery on the Format tab lets you choose colors for your task bars. For example, if you right-click a task, the toolbar includes buttons for setting the percent complete on the task. The mini-toolbar also has other frequently used commands related to what you right-click. When you right-click a selection-such as a single cell, a row, or several cells-a mini-toolbar ( Changing Selected Text) appears with formatting commands for the font, font color, background color, bold, italic, and more. You can also select several subtasks and use the Insert Summary command to make them all subtasks of the new summary task.Įasier formatting.
The Insert Summary command ( Moving Tasks) creates a new summary command with one subtask below it, ready for you to type its task name.
To learn how to customize the ribbon, see Setting Up an Outline Code Lookup Table. Instructions for using the ribbon, tabs, and commands start on Getting Around Project and also are scattered throughout this book wherever their corresponding features are discussed. With project management’s focus on tasks and resources, Project’s ribbon tabs are even easier to learn than their Office counterparts.
But once it does, you’ll find that many commands you use frequently-turning the project summary task and summary tasks on and off inserting summary tasks, subtasks, and milestones showing critical tasks, late tasks, and baselines in a Gantt Chart formatting task bars filtering, grouping, and sorting and much more-are within easy reach on the ribbon. It isn’t as intuitive as Microsoft would like you to believe, and some exploring is in order before it starts to make sense. If you knew the old menu bar inside and out, you might approach the ribbon with some trepidation. For more experienced project managers, this book can help you take your Project prowess to a new level with tips, timesaving tricks, and mastery of features that never quite behaved the way you wanted. It provides an introduction to managing projects and shows you how to use Project to do so. This book addresses the double whammy of learning your way around project management and Microsoft Project at the same time. You know what you want to do, but you can’t find the magic combination that makes Project do it. Either way, some Project features can be mystifying. Or maybe you already have dozens of Project schedules under your belt. Perhaps you’re staring at the screen, wondering about the meaning of the Gantt Chart and Resource Usage in the list of Project views. Whether you’re building a shining city on a hill or aiming for something more mundane, Microsoft Project helps you document project tasks, build a schedule, assign resources, track progress, and make changes until your project is complete. Sure, you’re organized and you can make sure people get things done, but successfully managing a project requires specific skills and know-how. The construction of the mountaintop city of Machu Picchu was a project-although no one’s really sure whether the ancient Inca had a word for “project manager.” In fact, you may not have realized you were a project manager when you were assigned your first project to manage. People have been managing projects for centuries.