New Features

• Microsoft Project Add in greatly improves integration with Project (Coming soon)
• Group Items Together for easy editing
• Add a Legend Entry to Box
• New Bars with Arrows integrated
• Make Holidays different Colors
• Gradient Bar Options Added
• Exclude End Lines on Bars
• Added Actions for Symbol Constraints
• Add Gridlines Between Valuesets
• Select Symbols by Date Range

Improvements

• Task Row + Cell Pattern Backgrounds
• Note Line Thickness Option
• Curtains Improved
• Legend Font Improved
• Adjust Column Divider Lines
• Change Fonts in Each Column and even Cell
• Custom Symbol Creator Improved
• Fade to Edge added for Rows
• Add Baseline can automatically add Symbol Links
• Hide Names in Datagraphs

New feature: Project Add in for seamless integration with Milestones (This feature is coming soon)

Install the new Microsoft Project add-in for seamless integration with Milestones.

• Go back and forth between the add-in and Milestones.
• Create schedules in a variety of presentation formats.
• Design your own custom template and save it as a custom project import template. Use last custom template.  Then click Make Milestones chart.
•  Send to PowerPoint to instantly see your schedule as a series of slides.
• Add-in is optional.  All features can also be accessed from Milestones Professional.

Create stunning schedules in minutes and easily update via refresh

• The Let the Wizard Guide you selection included much improved symbology choices for Gantt bars.  
• Improved refresh report offers useful insights about updated schedules.

We’ve introduced a powerful new feature designed to help you display exactly what you need on your schedule with greater clarity and customization.

Now, you can group various elements, including pictures, boxes, circles, lines, text, and even complete legend entries. This added flexibility means you can create fully customized visuals, whether you’re enhancing your schedule with tailored annotations or designing a custom legend to suit your unique requirements.

By grouping elements together, you can ensure consistent positioning and styling, making your schedules not only more informative but also more visually appealing.

See an example below:

Learn more about groups

New Feature: Add Legend Entries to Boxes

As demonstrated with the Group Feature above, you can now add Legend Entries directly to boxes, making it easier to create highly customized legends.

For example, the legend shown on the left was created using background boxes for structure, large labels made with Freeform Text, six individual boxes with attached Legend Entries, and additional Freeform Text to label the bars. This flexible approach allows you to design legends that are both clear and tailored to your specific schedule layout.

One of the key advantages of the Group Feature is that it allows you to combine all these elements—legend entries, boxes, and text—into a single group. Once grouped, the legend becomes locked into place, making it easier to reposition as a whole without accidentally misaligning any parts.

Additionally, you can copy the entire grouped legend to other pages or even enable it to display consistently across all pages of your schedule. This feature provides a convenient way to maintain a clean and professional look throughout your entire project.

Learn more about groups

New Feature: Bars with Integrated Arrows

Due to popular demand, we’ve introduced bars with built-in arrowheads in version 2025, making it easier than ever to create clear and professional-looking schedules. These arrowhead bars are particularly useful for indicating direction, flow, or dependencies between tasks at a glance.

You’ll also notice a wide variety of bar sizes to choose from, ensuring you can find the perfect fit for your specific scheduling needs. Whether you’re highlighting key milestones or emphasizing task progress, the flexibility in bar sizing and style gives you more control over the visual presentation of your schedule.

New Feature: Holiday Shading Options

You might already know that you can shade holidays on your schedule, but we’ve taken this feature a step further by adding the ability to assign different colors to each holiday. This enhancement allows for better visual distinction between various types of holidays, such as federal holidays, company-specific breaks, plant closures, or regional observances.

By using unique colors for different holiday categories, your schedule becomes easier to read and interpret at a glance, helping you quickly identify key dates and periods without confusion.

New Feature: Bar Gradient options and bar end line removal

We’ve expanded your customization options for bars, giving you greater flexibility in how they look and feel. You can now apply a new double-gradient style, allowing you to create more visually dynamic and engaging bars by blending two gradients seamlessly.

Additionally, we’ve introduced the ability to remove the bar ends entirely, which results in a smoother and more continuous color flow, enhancing the overall aesthetic of your schedule.

New Feature: Symbols can change based on date, column text

In the Constraints and Actions sub-tab for a symbol, you can define various criteria to automatically change the symbol’s shape and color.

In this example, the symbol checks a specific column for certain text and updates accordingly if the text is found. This column data can also be imported from Excel or MS Project, allowing symbols to update automatically when needed.

Beyond comparing column text, you can set the symbol to change based on its position relative to specific dates or even in relation to another symbol on the schedule. You can reference the other symbol using either its Symbol Tag or Symbol Name.

New Feature: Select symbols by date range

Did you know that in Milestones Professional, you can already select All Symbols on your schedule or All Symbols of a Certain Type?

These options have always been available by right-clicking on a symbol.

Now, a new feature allows you to Select Symbols by Date Range, with an added option to limit the selection to only visible task rows—preventing accidental selection of hidden symbols.

This feature makes it easier to modify specific symbols on your schedule, whether you’re shifting task dates (using the Dates Tab) or overriding symbol colors (via Selection Tab > Size/Color Sub-tab).

New Feature: New custom symbol editor 

• resolution up to 400x400

• Move any point on the grid.  The selected point can be moved with the mouse or by using the keyboard.

• New higher resolution symbols can co-exist with symbols using the lower resolution

Improvement: Fade to edge for task rows 

You can now apply the Fade to Edge effect to individual task rows, giving you a new way to highlight specific tasks and make your schedule visually distinct. This feature is particularly useful for drawing attention to key tasks, phases, or milestones, ensuring that important elements stand out clearly at a glance.

To take it even further, you can combine this with our new Group Feature to create a custom legend. By grouping background highlights with legend entries and labels, you can provide clear explanations for the color coding or background effects applied to your task rows. This not only enhances the visual clarity of your schedule but also helps viewers quickly understand what the different highlights represent.

With these new options, you have more control over how your schedules look and communicate important information, making it easier than ever to deliver polished, professional presentations.

New note connector options

Normally connectors drawn between notes and the symbol always have a little jog. The connector comes out of the symbol either vertically or horizontally a little way, and then angles toward the symbol. This new option allows you to always draw the connector in a single straight line.  (This is a global option.)

Thicker note connector

The lines going from the symbol to the symbol note can now be drawn in a slightly thicker line.  This will be helpful on monitors with a lower resolution.

Circles can be forced to appear under rectangles

Hatch patterns can be added to boxes and circles

Symbols can be added to freeform text blocks

This feature was added to allow embedded bitmap pictures to be rendered transparent on screen and clipped when sent to PowerPoint, PDF or printer.  It require adding a &symbol text string to a freeform text block.  See: Add a bitmap symbol to freeform text.

Add a legend entry to a box

• Curtains can now be shown over shading and still have gridlines visible. 
• The curtain label has been increased to 199 characters.  
• Curtains border color and line type can be changed.
• Horizontal gridlines can appear over any holiday or weekend shading
• Specify a different color for each holiday

Each Legend Entry can now have text font, style, and font size overrides. Thus, any Legend Entry can be used as a heading/title for the entries that follow: