The Gantt chart, named after its developer Henry Gantt, is a horizontal bar chart that shows the different tasks down the left side of the chart and units of time (e.g. days, weeks, months) across the top. Usually each task has two bars associated with it. One shows the projected time duration and the other shows the actual time needed to complete the task.
Lotus 1-2-3 can be used to emulate what most Gantt charting programs do. Here are two different attempts to do this. The first uses the ++ formatting capabilities of a cell to display an old-fashioned histogram. The second uses the graphics capabilities of the Lotus 1-2-3 program in the HP Palmtop to show a horizontal line chart. Neither approach is completely satisfactory, but, in the absence of the right tool for the job, it might just work.
The worksheet shown below in two parts produces a semblance of a Gantt chart for a System Development Life Cycle (SDLC is a typical project in the field of data processing.)
If you want to create the file manually, here are the steps
1. Enter the text (e.g. System plan, Analysis, and the names of the months) in the indicated cells. The names of the months are entered down each column, one letter at a time. Just enter the names of the month for a year and copy them across the spreadsheet for each year that you want to portray.
2. In column B, starting with row 6 and continuing down, enter the date for the start of a task embedding it in the 1-2-3 function @date(Y,M,D). The column is formatted with the command [Menu] Range Format Date 3. You can enter the starting date for each task and then copy it into the next row down. This will give you one row to show the proposed time for the task and the actual time.
3. Column C is formatted as Fixed 1 and has a column width of 4 and contains the proposed times and actual times for the completion of each task. If the task has not been started, just enter a zero in the cell.
4. In Row 5, starting at column E and running across the spreadsheet, enter the function @date(Y,M,D) where Y, M, D are the year, month and day (always 1 for the first day of the month). If you use the command [Menu] Worksheet Global Column-Width 2, and then widen columns A and B, you'll get row 5 filled with asterisks. That's OK.
5. In cell E6 enter the function @IF((E$5>=$B6)#AND#(F$5<($b6+($c6+1)*30)),2,0) be careful when entering this. Double check the parentheses and the use of the "$" sign to set columns or rows to absolute reference. Copy this function down and across the spreadsheet for as many rows and columns as you need. The function says, in effect, if the cell represents a date within the range of the starting date and ending date of the task, put two plusses in the cell, otherwise put a dot there.
6. to make the dots and plusses appear format the range containing the @if( ) functions with the command [Menu] Range Format +.
7. to keep the month names and columns a through d on the screen, go to cell e6 and use the command [Menu] Worksheet Title Both.
The advantage to this version of a Gantt chart is that it doesn't require any graphics display and, hence, should work most versions of 1-2-3. The disadvantages are that the size of the file will grow drastically the more activities you have and the longer the project runs. Also the time scale is fixed to show only the monthly time lines.
Make sure you either have the DATE FORMAT SET as DD/MM/YY (Select Setup application, by pressing Ctrl + Filer. Then press Menu, Options, Date/Time.) or change the dates in the spreadsheet to represent your current date format settings of your HP100LX/HP200LX.
Open spreadsheet in lotus 123 and press F10 for graph display.
The spreadsheet can be used for displaying tasks with start and end dates in graphical presentation, for instance in projects. Or any other date periods you want to present graphically.
If the current date is much different than the earliest and latest dates in the spreadsheet, change them to reflect a more current period. This is because the current date is graphically represented in the display and the total time line is adjusted automatically to display the earliest and latest dates in the spreadsheet.
The graph will automatically adjust to earliest and latest dates in the spreadsheet and align all other dates between those. Limit the period so the graph view still make sense. Depending on task contents I've found a quarter of a year works best.
Up to 20 tasks can be displayed conveniently. If you add rows between existing rows, the references to cells should automatically adjust.
I used holidays in the 3rd quarter of 1996 of my teammates and family members to display the graphical possibilities of this spreadsheet.
Change the first 4 columns to represent your own data and press F10 to view the graph.
Press Menu, Graph, F2 to edit graph settings while in Lotus 123 and the GANTT.WK1 spreadsheet loaded.
Ronald Leunis James Stewart street 85 1325 JC Almere The Netherlands Compuserve user-id: 101564,3316 Internet: 101564.3316@compuserve.com or: ronald.leunis@nike.com