Best Office Timeline alternatives (now Lucen Timeline)

What happened to Office Timeline?

Office Timeline is now called Lucen Timeline. In May 2026 the company rebranded from Office Timeline to Lucen Software, renamed its existing products and added two new ones. The old officetimeline.com address now redirects to lucensoftware.com, which is why a search for the Office Timeline download or pricing page lands somewhere with a different name on it.

The rename is cosmetic for existing customers. Lucen's own rebrand page says subscriptions, licenses, saved files, logins and integrations all carry over, existing installs update to the new branding on their own, and there were no tier changes or price increases as part of the switch. What did change is the shape of the company: it now sells a small suite rather than one add-in.

For someone searching for an alternative, the practical point is that almost everything written about the product, including nearly all of its reviews on G2 and Capterra, still calls it Office Timeline. The listings themselves now carry the Lucen name. If you are comparing it against other tools, you are comparing against the same product, just under a new label.

Is Office Timeline free?

Partly. Both versions have a free tier, but each one stops roughly where a real project plan starts. The free PowerPoint add-in limits you to 10 milestones and tasks per timeline, one time scale and a small number of swimlanes. The free online version lets you build timelines in the browser, but its exports carry a watermark and it leaves out the data integrations.

The paid add-in comes in three tiers, each sold as a one-year license per user and billed annually. Lite at $9 per user per month adds more templates and styling control. Plus at $17 adds swimlanes, dependencies and Excel import, and is the plan Lucen marks as most popular. Expert at $21 adds what Lucen describes as advanced capabilities, integrations and planned-versus-actual tracking. Across the paid tiers, Lucen Timeline imports and refreshes data from Excel, Microsoft Project, Smartsheet and Jira, and imports from Wrike. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee. The browser version has a single paid plan, Premium, at $13 a month on a one-year license billed annually, which removes the watermark and unlocks collaboration, integrations and the full template gallery. Prices are from Lucen's Timeline pricing page and the Timeline Online page.

So the answer to "is there a free Office Timeline" is yes, and it is fine for a one-off slide with a handful of milestones. Once a plan has a few dozen tasks, or you need dependencies, the free add-in is no longer the tool you are using, and the decision becomes whether $17 to $21 per person per month, paid a year at a time, is worth it for what is mostly a presentation layer.

Why do people move away from Lucen Timeline?

The most common reason is that the slide is not the plan. Lucen Timeline is a presentation tool: it turns dates you already have into a polished PowerPoint visual, and Lucen says plainly that it does not replace project management tools. If your schedule already lives in Microsoft Project, Excel, Smartsheet or Jira and you pay for the tier that syncs with it, that division of labor works well. If the timeline slide is the only place your plan exists, every slipped date means editing slide objects by hand, and nothing moves the dependent tasks for you.

The second reason is platform. The add-in runs only on PowerPoint for Windows. Lucen's help centre states that it cannot be installed on macOS and does not work with PowerPoint for Mac, and points Mac users to the browser version instead. A team with a mix of Windows and Mac laptops ends up on two different products.

The third is cost and scope. Licenses are per user, per year, so a team where four people occasionally update the roadmap slide pays for four annual seats. Large plans also strain a single slide: reviewers mention that busy timelines get cluttered, that long gaps cannot be compressed, and that reimporting data can undo manual formatting.

There is a fair case for staying, too. If your job is a monthly steering-committee slide built from a Microsoft Project or Excel plan that someone else maintains, Lucen Timeline Expert is very good at exactly that, and only thinkcell on this list produces native, editable PowerPoint objects in a comparable way.

• Rating: 4.6/5 on Capterra (37 reviews), 4.4/5 on G2 (15 reviews), both listed as Lucen Timeline

What users say about Lucen Timeline

How should you judge a replacement?

Start with where the plan should live, because that decides almost everything else. If the plan lives in another system and you only need a better slide, you want a PowerPoint add-in or a timeline maker. If the slide has quietly become the plan, you want a scheduling tool that owns the dates and can produce a picture for the deck on demand. Mixing the two up is how teams end up paying for a presentation tool and still redrawing the slide every week.

Then check the handful of things that separate these tools in practice:

• Way into PowerPoint: native editable shapes, a downloaded .pptx file, or an image or PDF you paste in.
• Scheduling logic: whether dependencies move later tasks when an early one slips, or every bar is placed by hand.
• Free scope: how many tasks or events the free tier really allows, and whether its exports carry a watermark or branding.
• Price model: per user per year, a flat monthly fee, or free.
• Platform: Windows-only add-in, Windows and Mac, or anything with a browser.
• Sharing: whether people who do not own a license can see the current version without waiting for the next deck.

Which tools can replace Office Timeline?

The list runs from the closest like-for-like replacement, a PowerPoint add-in, to tools that hold the whole schedule. Each entry says how its output gets into PowerPoint, because for most Office Timeline users that is the question that decides it.

1. thinkcell - Gantt charts built inside PowerPoint

thinkcell (long written think-cell) is the add-in consultants and finance teams use to build charts directly in PowerPoint, and its Gantt chart is the nearest thing to Lucen Timeline that is not Lucen Timeline. You get a calendar scale from days to fiscal years, activity bars, milestones, brackets for events like workshops, and extra columns for status markers such as Harvey balls and checkboxes. The chart can be linked to an Excel range, so when the dates in the workbook change, the slide updates.

The Gantt chart is one feature in a large charting package, and you pay for the whole package. It sits in thinkcell Suite, not in the cheaper Essentials plan, and it is still a drawing tool: there is no scheduling engine pushing later tasks back when an early one slips. Unlike Lucen Timeline, it runs on both Windows and Mac versions of desktop PowerPoint, though not in PowerPoint for the web. If you live in decks and also need waterfall, Mekko or bar charts, you will use enough of the package to justify the cost. If you only ever made one roadmap slide a month, it is a lot to pay for.

• Best for: people who build data-heavy PowerPoint decks and want Gantt charts as native, editable slide objects.
• Pricing: No free plan, free trial available. Gantt charts need thinkcell Suite at US$28.60 per user per month, billed annually; Essentials (US$8.90) has no charts; AI Suite US$46.54, AI Suite Plus US$97.60. Sold per user from one license.
• Into PowerPoint: native chart objects, built in PowerPoint and optionally linked to Excel.
• Rating: 4.6/5 on Capterra (25 reviews), 4.5/5 on G2 (85 reviews, listed as thinkcell Suite)

Pros

• Charts are real PowerPoint objects that anyone with the add-in can edit.
• Excel linking refreshes recurring status slides in seconds.
• Works with desktop PowerPoint on Windows and Mac.
• Covers far more than Gantt charts for people who make many kinds of slides.

Cons

• Expensive if the Gantt chart is all you need.
• No dependencies or automatic rescheduling; dates are placed, not calculated.
• Colleagues without thinkcell can view the slide but lose the chart behavior when they edit it.

What users say about thinkcell

2. Preceden - browser timeline maker with PowerPoint export

Preceden is the closest match to Lucen Timeline Online: a browser-based timeline maker, not a project management tool, that is built for turning a list of dated events into a clean visual. You group events into layers, one per team or workstream, mark milestones, and export the result as a PowerPoint file, PDF, PNG, spreadsheet or a share link. The PowerPoint export places an image on the slide; individual events are not editable PowerPoint objects. It works on any computer with a browser, so the Windows-only problem goes away.

Its free plan limits the size of each timeline, not the number of timelines. You can make as many timelines as you like and export them to PowerPoint, but each timeline is capped at 10 events and carries Preceden branding, which is the same kind of ceiling as the free Office Timeline add-in. Spreadsheet import needs a paid plan, and collaborating with other people needs the Pro plan. It suits a solo planner or consultant who makes timeline slides for others, rather than a team running a live schedule.

• Best for: individuals who want a quick, good-looking timeline in the browser and a .pptx to drop into a deck.
• Pricing: Free for unlimited timelines with up to 10 events each. Basic $10 a month billed annually ($25 monthly) for unlimited events, no branding and spreadsheet import; Pro $16 a month billed annually ($40 monthly) adds collaborators, a custom logo and a custom domain. 15-day money-back guarantee.
• Into PowerPoint: a PowerPoint file containing an image, plus PDF and PNG exports. Edit the timeline in Preceden and export it again to change its events.
• Rating: 3.8/5 on G2 (11 reviews); not listed on Capterra

Pros

• Runs in any browser, on Windows or Mac.
• PowerPoint export on every plan, including the free one.
• Monthly price is per account, not per user, until you need collaborators.

Cons

• Free timelines are capped at 10 events and carry Preceden branding.
• A timeline maker first; scheduling depth is light compared with a Gantt tool.
• Collaboration only on the top plan.

What users say about Preceden

3. Ganttile - free online Gantt chart that holds the plan

Ganttile takes the opposite approach to Lucen Timeline. Instead of making a better slide from a plan that lives elsewhere, it is where the plan lives: a free online Gantt chart with task dependencies, milestones, automatic scheduling and critical path. When a task slips, the tasks that depend on it move with it, so the chart stays correct without anyone dragging bars around. Zoom runs from day to week, month, quarter and year, several projects can sit on one chart, and there is no task cap and no per-user license.

Getting it into a deck is an export, not a sync. Ganttile exports a PNG image, or a PDF on A4, A3 or Letter paper that fits the timeline to the page width, splits it into tiled pages or keeps it on one long page, for whichever date range you pick. It also exports Excel (.xlsx) and Microsoft Project XML (.xml) for handing the plan to someone else. What it does not have matters just as much for a PowerPoint user: there is no .pptx export, so the slide shows a picture rather than editable shapes; there are no swimlane layouts or slide themes; and there is no view-only share link, so people outside the chart see whatever you last exported. If teammates need to work in the plan with you, the same project opens in Breeze with task boards and comments around it.

• Best for: people whose timeline slide is really a project schedule that keeps changing, and who want it to stay correct for free.
• Pricing: Free, every feature included, unlimited projects and tasks.
• Into PowerPoint: PNG image or PDF, with no watermark; no native PowerPoint export.

Pros

• Free with no task limit, no per-user license and nothing to install.
• Dependencies, automatic scheduling and critical path keep dates consistent.
• Runs in any browser, so Mac and Windows users share the same tool.
• Clean PNG and PDF exports for decks, plus Excel and Microsoft Project XML for handoff.

Cons

• No PowerPoint export; the slide gets an image, not editable shapes.
• No swimlanes, slide themes or presentation styling.
• No view-only share link for stakeholders.
• Newer tool with little third-party review coverage so far.

Why teams pick Ganttile

4. TeamGantt - easy Gantt tool with a public share link

TeamGantt is a web Gantt tool built around being easy for people who are not project managers. You drag tasks onto a timeline, link them, mark progress, and share the live schedule with anyone through a public link, which solves the stale-slide problem in a different way: instead of sending a new picture every week, you send one link that always shows today's plan. Exports to PDF cover the moments when a deck still needs a static copy.

Pricing is per account and per number of projects, not per user, which is unusual and worth working through. Base covers 5 projects for one manager and up to 10 collaborators at a flat monthly fee; Business adds unlimited users and extra projects at a per-project charge. For a team presenting one or two big programs to many stakeholders, that can be cheaper than per-seat licenses. For someone who only needs a slide once a month, it is a lot of tool. Our TeamGantt alternatives page covers its limits in more depth.

• Best for: teams that want a friendly, shared Gantt chart that stakeholders can open as a live link.
• Pricing: Free Personal plan for 1 user, 1 project and 40 tasks. Base $59 a month ($590 a year) for 5 projects, 1 manager and 10 collaborators; Business from $120 a month ($1,140 a year) for 5 projects with unlimited users, plus $24 a month per extra project; Builder Edition from $199 a month ($1,908 a year) for 10 projects. 14-day free trial.
• Into PowerPoint: PDF export or a screenshot; a public share link replaces many status slides.
• Rating: 4.6/5 on Capterra (204 reviews), 4.8/5 on G2 (895 reviews)

Pros

• Very easy to learn, even for occasional users.
• Public share link shows the live schedule to people without an account.
• Flat pricing per project rather than per user.

Cons

• Free plan is limited to one project and 40 tasks.
• No native PowerPoint output.
• Reporting is basic for larger programs.

What users say about TeamGantt

5. GanttPRO - structured scheduling with baselines

GanttPRO is a paid web Gantt tool for teams that want more scheduling control than a timeline add-in can offer. Even the cheapest plan includes auto scheduling, dependencies, critical path, milestones and baselines, so you can show a steering committee not only where the project is but how far it has drifted from the original plan, which is the planned-versus-actual view Lucen keeps for its Expert tier. It imports Microsoft Project files and exports PDF, PNG and Excel.

It is priced per user, so it suits a team that plans together rather than one person producing slides. The listed prices are for a 20-member team billed annually; smaller teams pay a little more per seat. If you are coming to it from Office Timeline, expect to spend your time in the schedule rather than on slide styling, because GanttPRO's exports are clean but plain.

• Best for: project teams that want baselines and critical path and are happy paying per seat.
• Pricing: No free plan, 14-day free trial. Core $7, Advanced $10 and Business $17 per user per month billed annually at the default 20-member team size; Enterprise is listed at $35, with a $25 offer, per user per month billed annually and a 5-user minimum. Confirm the offer and team size before budgeting. Plan details.
• Into PowerPoint: PDF or PNG export.
• Rating: 4.8/5 on Capterra (559 reviews), 4.8/5 on G2 (590 reviews)

Pros

• Baselines, critical path and auto scheduling on every plan.
• Microsoft Project import for plans that start there.
• Quick to learn for a full scheduling tool.

Cons

• Per-user pricing adds up for occasional users.
• No free plan, only a 14-day trial.
• Exports are functional rather than presentation-styled.

What users say about GanttPRO

6. Instagantt - Gantt charts for Asana users and on its own

Instagantt is a web Gantt tool that works standalone or as a timeline layer on top of Asana. For an Office Timeline user whose tasks already live in Asana, that is the interesting part: rather than exporting Asana tasks to Excel and importing them into a slide, the timeline is drawn straight from the tasks the team is already updating. It covers dependencies, milestones and drag-and-drop scheduling, and exports PDF and image files on the paid plans.

The free tier only applies inside Asana, for up to three connected Asana projects. Standalone use starts with the Individual plan, and the Teams plan adds shared workspaces and resource management for three people, with more collaborators at a per-seat charge. Our Instagantt alternatives page goes into where it falls short.

• Best for: Asana teams that want a proper Gantt view of the work they already track.
• Pricing: Free for Asana users (up to 3 Asana projects). Individual $10 a month billed annually ($12 monthly); Teams $20 a month billed annually ($24 monthly) for 3 collaborators, plus $8 a month per extra collaborator. 7-day free trial.
• Into PowerPoint: PDF or image export.
• Rating: 4.3/5 on Capterra (467 reviews), 4.3/5 on G2 (29 reviews)

Pros

• Builds the timeline from Asana tasks the team already updates.
• Low monthly price for an individual.
• Dependencies and drag-and-drop scheduling in the browser.

Cons

• The free tier only works for Asana projects.
• Exports are images and PDFs, not editable slides.

What users say about Instagantt

7. Smartsheet - when the timeline needs a planning system behind it

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-style work platform with Gantt, board and calendar views, automations and dashboards. It belongs on this list for two reasons. If your organization wants the plan, the status reporting and the stakeholder view in one system, a Smartsheet dashboard can replace the recurring timeline slide altogether. And if you like Lucen Timeline for the visuals, it is one of the sources Lucen Timeline can import from and refresh, so the two can work together rather than compete.

It is a big step up in scope and cost from a timeline add-in. The Gantt view comes with Pro, but the Timeline view and workload tracking are on Business, which requires at least three paid members. Choose it because you need the planning system, not because you need a better slide.

• Best for: operations and PMO teams that want plans, automation and dashboards in one place.
• Pricing: No free plan. Pro $9 per member per month billed annually ($12 monthly) for 1 to 10 members; Business $19 per member per month billed annually ($24 monthly) for 3 or more members; Enterprise custom from 10 members.
• Into PowerPoint: dashboards shared live, or a PDF of the sheet; can also feed Lucen Timeline.
• Rating: 4.5/5 on Capterra (3,557 reviews), 4.4/5 on G2 (22,766 reviews)

Pros

• Familiar spreadsheet grid with Gantt view, automations and dashboards.
• Dashboards give stakeholders a live view instead of a weekly slide.
• Scales to many projects and large organizations.

Cons

• Far more than a timeline tool, with the learning curve to match.
• Timeline view and workload tracking need the Business plan.

What users say about Smartsheet

8. Microsoft Project - the desktop scheduler many timelines come from

A lot of Office Timeline slides start life as a Microsoft Project plan, so it is worth asking whether you need the extra layer at all. Project desktop has its own Timeline view, and its Copy Timeline command (Format, then Copy Timeline, then For Presentation) produces a version sized for a PowerPoint slide. That sits alongside the full scheduling engine: dependencies with lead and lag, baselines, critical path and resource leveling. If your slides are a summary of a Project plan and the default Timeline view looks good enough to your audience, you may not need a separate add-in.

Know which Project you are buying. Project Online was retired on 30 September 2026, but the desktop apps are still sold: Project Standard 2024 and Project Professional 2024 as one-time purchases, and the desktop app is also included in the Planner and Project Plan 3 subscription. Like the Lucen add-in, the desktop app is Windows software. Our Microsoft Project alternatives page covers the retirement and the migration options in detail.

• Best for: project managers who already run detailed schedules in Project and want the slide to come from the same file.
• Pricing: Project Standard 2024 $679.99 and Project Professional 2024 $1,129.99, one-time purchases for one PC; Planner and Project Plan 3 $30 per user per month, paid yearly, includes the desktop app. No free plan.
• Into PowerPoint: Copy Timeline, For Presentation, pasted onto a slide (Project 2016 to 2024 and the Project Online Desktop Client), or a PDF of the plan.
• Rating: 4.0/5 on G2 (1,627 reviews, listed as Microsoft Project & Portfolio Management, all editions); no Capterra listing for Project desktop

Pros

• The deepest scheduling engine on this list.
• Built-in Timeline view removes the need for a separate add-in for simple slides.
• One-time purchase option for the desktop app.

Cons

• Expensive and steep to learn for someone who only needs a timeline.
• Default Timeline styling is plainer than Lucen Timeline or thinkcell output.
• Desktop app is Windows only.

What users say about Microsoft Project

How do they compare side by side?

The table lines the tools up on the two questions that matter most when you leave a PowerPoint add-in: where the plan lives, and how it gets into the deck. Prices are the entry paid plan, billed annually where that is cheaper.

Who should pick which tool?

If you present plans that someone else maintains and you want the slide to look as good as Lucen Timeline's, stay in PowerPoint. thinkcell is the only real alternative there, and it is worth it if you also build other charts; otherwise Lucen Timeline itself is usually the cheaper of the two. Mac users who were pushed to the browser version can use thinkcell on desktop PowerPoint instead.

If you make the occasional timeline slide and want something lighter, Preceden is the closest browser match. Its free plan covers the same kind of small slide as the free Office Timeline add-in and exports a PowerPoint file containing a timeline image.

If your slide is your plan, stop maintaining it as a slide. Put the schedule in a Gantt tool with dependencies, and export a picture when the deck needs one. Ganttile does that for free if a PNG or PDF on the slide is enough and you do not need a live link for stakeholders. TeamGantt is the pick when stakeholders should open the live schedule themselves, GanttPRO when you need baselines to show drift, and Instagantt when the tasks already live in Asana. If you are new to the difference between the two formats, our piece on Gantt charts versus timelines explains when each one fits, and the project timeline template is a quick way to see whether a Gantt chart covers what your slide was doing.

Reach for Smartsheet or Microsoft Project only when you need a planning system as well as a picture. Both can feed Lucen Timeline, so choosing one of them does not have to mean giving up the slides you already like. And if you want to try the no-tool route first, our guide to a Gantt chart in PowerPoint shows how far the built-in shapes and tables go.

Office Timeline questions, answered

Is there a free version of Office Timeline?

Yes. The free PowerPoint add-in allows up to 10 tasks and milestones per timeline, and the free online version builds timelines in the browser with watermarked exports. Paid add-in plans run from $9 to $21 per user per month on a one-year license billed annually.

Does Office Timeline work on a Mac?

The PowerPoint add-in does not. Lucen's help centre says it cannot be installed on macOS and does not work with PowerPoint for Mac. Mac users can use the browser-based Lucen Timeline Online, or an alternative such as thinkcell, which runs in desktop PowerPoint on Mac, or a browser tool such as Preceden or Ganttile.

Can I make a Gantt chart in PowerPoint without an add-in?

Yes, with shapes, a table or a stacked bar chart, but every date change has to be redrawn by hand. That is manageable for a handful of tasks. For anything larger, it is easier to keep the schedule in a Gantt tool and paste an exported image into the slide.

Where to start

Before switching, identify the part of the current workflow that fails: editing on a Mac, fitting a larger timeline, paying for occasional use, or keeping a changing schedule current. Use that requirement to choose two tools to trial.

Match the replacement to that reason. Stay in PowerPoint with thinkcell, go lighter with Preceden, or move the schedule into a Gantt tool and treat the slide as an export. If it is the last one, build your current timeline once in a free tool and see whether the next status meeting gets easier.