GanttMono — Monospaced font for Gantt charts

Why, what and how

Drawing Gantt charts is a minor pain in the life of anyone that manages projects. Hand‑drawing charts in Powerpoint or Keynote, coloring cells in Excel or using chart hacks are all — at best — workarounds. The alternative are using complex software — like Microsoft Project — or transformation steps — like Mermaid — and they're often more time‑consuming than the workarounds.

What if you could draw a Gantt chart as easy as typing letters? Just like they did in the Apollo project — but without the need for gallons of correction fluid?

GanttMono fulfills that exact need: by mapping every character to a unit of time, it lets you 'type' your schedule — turning strings of text into precise duration bars and asterisks into project milestones.

It offers three widths and multiple bar patterns for visual depth, alongside convenience glyphs that make drawing arrows and timescale headers as fast as typing a sentence.

Try it!

Type here:
Valid characters are: space or x,o,%,\,/,#,:,*,+,-,>[,=,],(,_,)

Downloads

Download the .ttf files as needed, and install them as usual on your OS

glyph map
.space
Empty
..
Empty
oo
Outline
xx
Solid
//
Hatch ↗
\\
Hatch ↘
%X
Cross 45°
#H
Cross 90°
:h
Small squares
**
milestone
++
milestone
--
centerline
>>
Arrow
[[
Outline start
==
Outline mid
]]
Outline end
((
Header start
__
Header line
))
Header end
Example charts
Design — solid
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
Development — offset
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Blocked — hatch ↗
//////
//////
Waiting — hatch ↘
\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\
Planned — outline
oooooooo
oooooooo
Dotted pattern
::::::::
::::::::
Milestones and arrows
+--->*
+--->*
Mixed
xxx/// ooooxxxxx--->:::: *
xxx/// ooooxxxxx--->:::: *
Header bars

Header bars can be typed using "(", "_" and ")" for starting tick, bottom line and closing tick respectively.

Convenience ligatures are also available, so typing "w" or "week " (with an ending space) will show up as a 7-slots bar with starting and closing tick marks

Typing the three starting letters of a month — for example "jan " or "apr " (lowercase with an ending space) — will show up as a 31- or 30-slots bar with starting and closing tick marks; "feb " is 28-slots long, and "febl " (l as in leap) will show up as a 29-long slot.

Weeks wwwwwww
Jan 31 days jan 
Apr 30 days apr 
Feb 29 days febl 
Feb 28 days feb 
Size comparison
8pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


12pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


18pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


24pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


32pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


48pt
////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


Width comparison
Narrow
wwwwww ////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


Regular
wwwwww ////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


Wide
wwwwww ////// xxxxxxxx \\\\oooo * --->####


Header bars
Timeline bar and bar types
(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)
ooooo->ooooo-------->######-------->/////// *

Timeline bar and coloring
(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)(_____)
ooooo xxxxxx//ooooo//
Ligatures and bars
o oo ooo oooo ooooo o [] [=====]

character reference
Barchart glyphs
spaceEmpty — nothing planned
.Empty — nothing planned
ooutline square — planned, not started
xSolid fill — active / done
/Diagonal hatch ↗ — blocked
\Diagonal hatch ↘ — waiting on dependency
%Cross hatch 45° — cancelled
#Cross hatch 90° — on hold
*Filled diamond — milestone
+Outline diamond — milestone
[Outline barchart start
=Outline barchart mid
]Outline barchart end
Convenience glyphs
-Middle line
>Arrow end
_Timeline middle
(Timeline left tick
)Timeline right tick
Caveats

GanttMono makes heavy use of ligatures, and depends on the rendering engine's behaviour for correct display. Here's a few caveats:

It's also my first typeface design ever: have mercy. Plus I work on Linux and MacOS, so Windows behaviour will be largely untested

Usage and rights

GanttMono is a free, open-source typeface provided under the SIL Open Font License.

GanttMono and this site are © 2026 Simone Cesano

GanttMono is provided as-is, with no warranties or guarantees. Use of GanttMono is at your own risk; the creator assumes no liability for its application in project management or any other use case, including for any damages arising from the modification, or redistribution of this typeface.

To-do
Thanks

GanttMono was made with Inkscape, FontForge and a fair amount of scripting in Perl and Python.

Thanks also go to Chartwell, that blazed the way for this, and to all the project managers that asked me to make Gantt charts in Excel. This is for you, I know you meant well.