I need a better way to print/share Gantt charts

Hi,

I frequently need to share Gantt charts - in project reports, presentations, proposals, etc. I find capturing the Gantts a real challenge. I know how to print them, but it often spans several pages and is essentially unreadable. I know how to make it fit to one page, but with the grid lines, it's pretty hard on the eyes. Printing to a jpg has a similar issue. I typically take screen shots, but that’s not a great option and because if issues with scaling the timeline, it’s not always possible.

Re the time scale... Months > Weeks makes the sheet too big but Quarters > Months shrinks it so small it's not useable.

I have a feeling this may be more of an enhancement request than a solvable problem with current functionality.

Any advice is appreciated!

- Steve

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Gantt View

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Comments

Shaine Greenwood

Printing is more of an art than a science in Smartsheet.

It can be challenging to print the data you want and how you want it, but that's mostly due how much data you're trying to builid into the PDF for print.

You may need to try selecting fewer rows, or using a date range and setting your timeline to weeks/days versus months/weeks. Details on printing can be found in our Help Center: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/809566-printing-from-smartsheet

I'm curious as to how you'd like the print to work? Would you like the grid lines to be less present? Smaller? The font to print larger? Or something else entirely?

Steve Beshuk

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

I've tried selecting fewer rows, using date ranges, etc. The challenge is that I need to share the complete Gantt chart with clients and it's not possible without creating a sheet that spans pages in a way that is unusable, or is so small that you need to print it on leger paper (and that has it's own challenges). There's just a fundamental issue with reporting that even "art" can't mitigate.

I have a few suggestions, but the primary one is to make the scaling more fine-grained. It's either too big or too small.

I would like the option not to print the gird and make the font bigger.

Being able not to print the dependency arrows (without having to un-flag the dependency option) would be nice.

More options to format the bars would be helpful (e.g., you can’t format the summary tasks, you can’t change width, or icons, etc.).

In short, I am suggesting that you look at MS Project's print options and use those as a product roadmap checklist.

I think SS is great, but this limitation (and a couple of others related to resource management) keep it from being a fully realized project management tool, imo. I will stayed tuned as you continue to improve it!

Gwyneth C

Hello! Thanks for the detailed feedback. I've added this to our enhancement request list.

-Gwyneth

BigAl

Hi Gwyneth, I now habe the same challenge but do not find any additional options to print. Was there any change since 2016? Thanks Alex

Gwyneth C

Hi Alex,

I have no new developments to report around Gantt chart print options. I'll reiterate Shaine's guidance that printing is a bit of an art. Not sure if you've already tried adjusting the timeline of your Gantt chart, but that's one option for getting it to a size that might render better so that you can share it. There's more information about how you can do that here:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/673816-adjusting-the-gantt-chart-timeline

Also, if you're interested in tracking recent and future product developments, here's link to Product Release Notes: https://www.smartsheet.com/release-notes.

Finally, please do share you specific printing and sharing scenarios with our development team. To do that, you can use the Submit Product Enhancement Request link under Quick Links here in Community.

Gwyneth C

One more resource that might help. You can also change the timeline display of the Gantt chart. More on that here:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/765755-modifying-project-settings#timelinedisplay

mmanes107831

I just want to print what I see on my screen. Columns go missing. I get a few columns and the gantt bars, but there are a number of cols missing.