Create Timelines in Office
Whether you need to create a historical timeline for a school homework assignment, a project timeline for your corporate office or small business or a family history timeline for your own genealogy research, Microsoft Office provides the tools you need to create a professional-looking timeline in your dorm room, home office or corporate workstation. Plus, when you finish a timeline in Microsoft Office, you can either upload it to a personal or corporate Web site, e-mail it to your boss or your friends, or print it out and turn it in at school.
Instructions
1. Start Microsoft Word and open a new document. From the "File" menu at the top of the screen, choose "Page Setup." In the "Page Setup" box, switch the "Orientation" to Landscape and then click "OK." This rotates the page so that your timeline can be longer, up to 11 inches.
2. Go to the "View" menu at the top of the screen, select "Toolbars" and then select "Drawing." This opens the Drawing toolbar, from which you can select the Rectangle tool to create your timeline.
3. Use the Rectangle tool to stretch a long, thin box from one side of the screen to the other in the middle of the document. If you want to colorize the box--the timeline--click on "Fill Color" on the Drawing toolbar and select the color you want the box to be.
4. Click on the Line tool on the Drawing toolbar and draw vertical lines on your horizontal timeline to separate periods. For example, on a timeline of ancient Rome, you might choose to separate the history of Rome into Royal Rome, Roman Republic, Imperial Rome and Divided Empire. You can do that by using the Line tool to draw lines between each of the four periods.
5. Click on the Text Box option on the Drawing toolbar and stretch an individual box for each period of your timeline, either above or below the timeline itself. Make sure the text boxes fit inside the periods you created. Type the corresponding information for each period of your timeline inside the corresponding box. For example, if you are creating a timeline of ancient Rome, your first box might include the caption "Royal Rome" with the corresponding dates for when that period of ancient Rome's history began and ended. If you want to remove the outlines of each text box, you can do so by selecting "No Line" on the Line Color tool.
6. Use the Line tool from the Drawing toolbar to add important events to your timeline. Add a caption and a date to each line you create. For instance, using our ancient Rome timeline for an example, you might decide to highlight the death of Julius Caesar as an event on your timeline. Use the Line tool to create a line that stretches from the timeline to an open area of your document and then create a text box and enter a caption, such as "Death of Julius Caesar, 44 B.C."
Tags: your timeline, Drawing toolbar, ancient Rome, Line tool, timeline your, Create Timelines, Create Timelines Office