How do I create a timeline chart which shows multi

Question

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?

Answer 1

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  

1. Plot Start and Duration as a stacked bar chart
2. Set the X-Axis minimum to the desired start date
3. Set the Fill Colour of thestart range to no fill
4. Set the Fill of individual bars to suit

(example prepared in Excel 2010)

Answer 2

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

1. Once done, plot your stacked bar chart using the entire data.
2. Mark start and end range to no fill.
3. 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! :))