How to extract a Gantt chart from MS Project

MS Project files (.mpp) are a closed format and the official tools to read them are MS Project itself or Project for the Web. There are workarounds, but they have tradeoffs.

1. You have MS Project open

Easiest export to Excel: File → Export → Save Project as File → Microsoft Excel Workbook. The wizard lets you map fields. Pick Task Name, Start, Finish, Duration, Predecessors, Resource Names — that's enough to reconstruct the plan elsewhere.

For a visual Gantt: Report → Visual Reports → Resource Usage Report (Excel) gets you a pivoted timeline. For a static image of the Gantt itself, Report → Copy Picture → Save it as a PNG.

2. You don't have MS Project (just the .mpp file)

ProjectLibre is a free open-source alternative that opens .mpp files and lets you export tasks to CSV. Quality is good for read access; less reliable if you try to edit.

MPXJ (Java library) reads .mpp programmatically — overkill for a one-off, useful if you're integrating Project files into a pipeline.

3. You only have a screenshot or PDF of the Gantt chart

Common in board decks and status reports: the Gantt is rendered, the source .mpp is gone or inaccessible. Two options:

• Manually retype the tasks and dates into Excel — for fewer than ~20 tasks this is the right answer.
• Run the screenshot through ExtractFox's chart data extractor with a prompt like "extract task name, start date, end date, and duration as a table." The model reads timeline bars positionally and infers dates from the axis.

Importing into a different tool

Once you have task/start/end as columns, most modern project tools (Asana, Monday, ClickUp, GitHub Projects) accept a CSV import with field mapping. The hard part is always the export, not the import.