Create and Manage Gantt Charts with GanttProject [LWN.net]

By Forrest Cook
December 10, 2008

GanttProject is an open-source cross-platform Java application that can be used to generate Gantt charts for the management of projects. Different components of GanttProject have been released under the GPL and Apache licenses. The project is described:

GanttProject is a free and easy to use Gantt chart based project scheduling and management tool. Our major features include: Task hierarchy and dependencies, Gantt chart, Resource load chart, Generation of PERT chart, PDF and HTML reports, MS Project import/export, WebDAV based groupwork.

The learn about document explains more of the project's features and some screen shots show some examples of what an older version of GanttProject looks like. Version 2.0.8 of GanttProject was recently announced:

The major improvement in GanttProject 2.0.8 is that task web links now appear in PDF and HTML exports. Besides, those who use filesystem paths as web links, now can specify relative path to a file from .gan file location. GanttProject 2.0.8 also includes a few bugfixes and localization improvements for Croatian, Japanese and Colombian users.

Installation of GanttProject 2.0.8 on an Ubuntu 8.04 system was fairly straightforward. The software was downloaded and unzipped. The prerequisite Sun Java Runtime Environment was downloaded and installed. The ganttproject.sh startup file was given execute status and run, the application started up as expected.

GanttProject is easy to figure out. There are top-level tabs for creating charts and resources (people). Tasks can be added, assigned date ranges and a variety of other attributes. Tasks can be tied to other prececessor tasks and assigned to people. It only took a few minutes of poking around the software to create a new project, produce a simple Gantt chart and output a PostScript file that was suitable for printing.

GanttProject is not alone in its ability to generate Gantt charts under Linux. Planner is a project management tool for the GNOME desktop environment and TaskJuggler is yet another project management tool. Both of these applications have a broader project management scope. If your needs only require generating Gantt charts, GanttProject is a straightforward application that can be used to easily produce professional looking results.

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