SEE PRO+
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Timeline
  4. /
  5. Templates
  6. /
  7. Powerpoint

PowerPoint Timeline

Using a PowerPoint timeline template is crucial when it comes to showcasing important project plans, schedules or workflows to clients or stakeholders. The benefits of a PowerPoint template when creating timelines are clear and concise:

  1. Speeds up the presentation-building process as you work right inside PowerPoint.
  2. Simplifies the efforts to create a clear, crisp timeline by providing an already professionally-designed format to your data.

Including timeline graphics that allow you to represent different activities and milestones within a specified time period, a PowerPoint timeline template may prove useful for a range of cases:

  • Giving an overview of major tasks;
  • Tracking the status of a project;
  • Visualizing how long specific activities/phases are going to take;
  • Highlighting important achievements.

In other words, a PowerPoint timeline template is a very effective way to ensure visibility and communicate a project’s story to those who need to stay in the loop.

To help you get started faster, we provide here a professional, clean PowerPoint timeline template that you can download and use for free, along with some additional information about this type of project visuals.

How do you create a timeline in PowerPoint?

You can create a timeline in PowerPoint in two ways:

  • Manually – by using one of the PowerPoint’s in-built Smart Art graphics and formatting it as a basic timeline.
  • Automatically – by installing the free PowerPoint timeline maker add-in called Office Timeline, choosing one of its timeline templates and customizing it to fit your needs.

To learn how to make a timeline in PowerPoint, here is our step-by-step tutorial on what each of the methods above entails.

Is there a timeline template in PowerPoint?

Yes, PowerPoint does have a series of simple graphics that users can manually format and adjust to create a basic timeline.

However, these PowerPoint-native timeline charts can prove limited or unsuitable for visually representing more complex plans that need to be regularly updated.

To offer you more flexible and diverse options, we’ve created this customizable PowerPoint timeline slide along with an entire collection of other professionally-designed timeline templates.

You can alter any of these PowerPoint timeline samples manually or automatically by using the free timeline maker add-in for PowerPoint called Office Timeline. Automating the entire process of creating, updating and customizing a timeline chart, the tool helps you save time and effort. It also provides you with additional pre-built timeline examples right inside the presentation platform.

Does Microsoft Office have a timeline template?

Microsoft Office does feature a few simple timeline templates within its suite of programs (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint). However, these graphics need further manual editing and formatting in order to create a basic timeline, which often proves time-consuming. To get started faster, please refer to our series of free tutorials on how to make a timeline using Microsoft Office tools.

To get started faster, please refer to our series of free tutorials on how to make a timeline using Microsoft Office tools.

Is this PowerPoint timeline template free?

Yes, this PowerPoint timeline template and all the other pre-made timeline slide samples we offer are free to download and use.

Using the PowerPoint timeline template

This free PowerPoint timeline template has been designed for professionals who need to quickly make high-level timeline presentations to important audiences. Clients and executives expect to see clear, intuitive, easy-to-follow visuals when reviewing any project plans, programs or business summaries. They also expect to see these communications in a way that is familiar to them and in a tool that they are comfortable using. A tool like Microsoft PowerPoint.

Complex Gantt charts or other visuals created by project management software or stand-alone planning applications are complicated, challenging to follow and hard to work with. The Microsoft PowerPoint timeline can be easily shared and edited by teams, customers and management who use PowerPoint. It will showcase your work in a way that will be easy for them to understand and pay attention to.

The PowerPoint timeline template will be a refreshing alternative for anyone who has been presented typical Gantt charts and project schedules in the past. It will make a timeline that is suitably high-level for any audience who are not involved in the daily detail of your project or plan. The template can be edited in PowerPoint by manually adding your project or plan’s data, or you can automatically edit it by downloading the free timeline creator from Office Timeline.

This timeline template has been built to work with Office Timeline’s free timeline creator app for Microsoft PowerPoint. With it you can add your plan’s milestones and tasks quickly, and change them instantly. The tool is a plug-in, which means you can edit this timeline template or quickly create timelines directly inside PowerPoint. All changes happen instantly so you can repeatedly update your timeline PPT slide as fast as clients and executives expect them, without having to manually rebuild the visual each time.

Office Timeline Pro+ also integrates with project management applications such as Microsoft Project. It enables you to import all of your existing project data and create a timeline slide in PowerPoint automatically.

Example Timeline Template
Example Timeline

100,542 downloads

Blank Timeline Template
Blank Timeline

191,993 downloads

Updating your template is simple and fast.

Use the Office Timeline PowerPoint add-in to quickly update any of these timeline templates or create your own project visuals. Easily change the texts, dates, colors, shapes and styles of your timeline, right from inside PowerPoint.

Free PowerPoint Timeline and Swimlane Maker