I am a Ph.D. student who has several other students going into the
field throughout the summer and I need to know when and where they are
so I do not double book them. What I would like to do is make a Gantt
chart for these students by entering the dates of when they go out and
come back into the first 12 - 15 colums (i.e. several trips following
each other on the same row). Then I would like Excel to format column
cells, that represent the days of the months, for those days that the
students are away (each student being in a separate row). I have tried
to use MS Project but this does not have the capacity to do this. Now
I would like to use excel. Not sure if I am clear on this so don't
hesitate to ask questions for clarification.

If anyone has ventured down this road I would appreciate any help.