Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual

Chapter 21. Linking and Embedding

To manage projects, you usually need several types of information all at the same time. That’s why so many project managers have a corkboard plastered with layers of printed pages or a computer screen with a dozen windows open at once. To see information without opening every program you own, you take information created in one program and display an editable copy of it in another program. This visual exchange goes in either direction: Project data can appear in other programs like Excel and PowerPoint, or information from other programs can appear in Project.

You have three ways to make this happen: copying, linking, and embedding. You can copy data from one program and paste it into another (see Copying Information for copying and pasting). In a way, copying is a lot like embedding, because you create a copy of the data in the destination program, but embedding does more, as you’ll learn shortly. Linking means connecting directly to information in one program from another program. For instance, a PowerPoint slide can display a high-level schedule from Project. When you update the schedule in Project, that latest, greatest version automatically appears in PowerPoint. On the other hand, embedding places a copy of an object (like a spreadsheet or Visio diagram) from one program into another. The embedded object and the original file aren’t linked, so you don’t automatically see changes made in the original. But embedded objects are ideal ...