How do I create a timeline chart which shows multiple events? Eg. Metallica Band members timeline on wiki ? where it shows the multiple band members and their durations.
Technologies to be used : Microsoft Office primarily. Any exotic technology where the learning curve isn't too much to do this stuff, should also be fine?
The answer is
A Stacked bar chart should suffice:
Setup data as follows
Name Start End Duration (End - Start)
Fred 1/01/1981 1/06/1985 1612
Bill 1/07/1985 1/11/2000 5602
Joe 1/01/1980 1/12/2001 8005
Jim 1/03/1999 1/01/2000 306
- Plot
StartandDurationas a stacked bar chart - Set the
X-Axis minimumto the desired start date - Set the
FillColour of thestartrange tono fill - Set the
Fillof individual bars to suit
(example prepared in Excel 2010)
As mentioned in the earlier comment, stacked bar chart does the trick, though the data needs to be setup differently.(See image below)
Duration column = End - Start
- Once done, plot your stacked bar chart using the entire data.
- Mark start and end range to no fill.
- Right click on the X Axis and change Axis options manually. (This did cause me some issues, till I realized I couldn't manipulate them to enter dates, :) yeah I am newbie, excel masters! :))
Source: Stackoverflow.com