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The project managers at my company were asked to use Microsoft Project 2013 to track our projects, but many of the business stakeholders do not have Project installed. It looks like I cannot just export the task list or Gantt chart as a PDF. There's this awful combined view for printing that just stretches lists and charts across pages and the PDF export seems to only print the same view, just to a PDF instead. I've used reports a little, but haven't found a quick solution to my problem there either.

Does anyone know a good way to share those project components and status updates on them with people that don't have project?

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  • Have you tried any FOSS solutions? I know you can use GanttProject, because I do that all the time for the exact same purposes. Not only to read MS-Project files but also to share info back and forth between my coworkers and me. There are many other FOSS solutions available, as well.
    – Manganeto
    Commented Feb 1, 2014 at 21:54
  • I don't use Project but occasionally have to view files from others in my org. For that I use Steelray project viewer. If you don't want to share the whole file you would need to do some editing/cleanup prior to sharing it.
    – Rob McMurtry
    Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 20:41

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Have you considered exporting the relevant data to Excel? If you display the Task Sheet (use the View ribbon) you can certainly save that view as PDF as well. Saving as PDF just prints the current view to a PDF printer.

I would filter and show only the tasks of interest - instead of saving the entire list.

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  • Thanks! I didn't realize that the Create PDF option exported whatever view you're on at the time. That helped a lot.
    – Daniel
    Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 17:34
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Other possible solution would be to upload your MS Project file to google drive. Once there, try to open it and a popup will display asking you to use a couple of free tools: 1. Gantter for google drive 2. Project viewer for google drive

Then, I guess you can share the file with your team.

Take a look at my screen

Another option would be to use Office 365 online. In that way, you can share the file and make the othe people work on it even if they are not logged. You just have to make it public in onedrive.

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I used to use File ->save as webpage option and customize to existing or new maps to display data according to my team needs.

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  • FYI: Save as web page is not in Project 2013 or Project 2010
    – JulieS
    Commented Feb 8, 2014 at 0:02
  • I used old software of Project 2003 and it is availble in that.
    – Sreedhar Nadadur
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 10:15
  • Right. But the OP said he was using Project 2013.
    – JulieS
    Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 22:15
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The Copy > Copy Picture option in 2013 has worked wonders for our communication. You can copy for screen, print, full size, etc. and it will be stored as an image on the clipboard.

Before discovering this, PDF was our way of distributing MS Project information to non-MS Project users and it didn't go nearly as well.

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I really struggled with this problem and was very frustrated with the options for formatting when exporting to a PDF. But I have made the most progress when using the "Page Setup" options available when Printing to PDF.

page setup button

If I set the paper size to something very large, then it will fit a lot more on the page and in a more convenient layout. You can also specify how many pages wide and tall you would like the final document to be so that it doesn't spread out into that ridiculous grid mentioned above. You also have options to hide the legend and show more or fewer of the columns.

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I highly recommend FOSS GanttProject to open the MS Project .mpp files, works really well. Viewing is much more felxible than any pdf/image based method, and it's free/open source so no adds/bloatware.

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I have used Copy> Copy Picture option and then pasted it in Word Pad. This way the entire project is copied and pasted. To see the details one has to only zoom in and scroll without going from page to page.

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I make use of the timeline. I've found it's a great visual report for sponsors and snr mgmt.

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I tried the approach from this answer and it worked really well:

The Copy > Copy Picture option in 2013 has worked wonders for our communication. You can copy for screen, print, full size, etc. and it will be stored as an image on the clipboard.

Before discovering this, PDF was our way of distributing MS Project information to non-MS Project users and it didn't go nearly as well.

The only thing I would add is how to get to this button. Click above the ribbon (IN MS Project 2013) where the "Quick access toolbar" is, choose customize and add copy picture from the options list. Once you try the copy picture a few times you'll get the hang of it. it's pretty straight forward and I will use a combination of filtering per resource in project then this copy picture trick instead of xlsx and pdf from now on.

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  • Please provide a link to the source you're quoting, whether it's an answer on Stack Exchange or elsewhere. Also, you probably want to format exact quotes with > markup.
    – Todd A. Jacobs ♦
    Commented Mar 12, 2016 at 4:33
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For people who don't have Microsoft Project installed on their computer, I will recommend an online project viewer as long as the files are up to 2MB. Cloud storage is also available. Online viewer - https://www.seavusprojectviewer.com/online-project-viewer

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