Hyperlinking in Project

- If your project schedule is always open on your computer hyperlinks make it easy to access other information related to your project. You can create hyperlinks to files, websites, or even specific records within your project file. Let's use the task Obtain approval for schematics to add a hyperlink to a file. To do that, I right click the task in the table, and on the shortcut menu down at the bottom there's an entry, Hyperlink.

I'm gonna click that, and that opens up the Insert Hyperlink dialog box. If you wanna add a hyperlink to a file or a web page, in the Link to section click that first box, Existing File or Web Page. If you wanna type a web page URL in you can do that right in the address box, or you could even paste it in from your browser. In this case, I want to link to a file. What I'm gonna do, in the linked in drop down list, I click this down arrow at the right side of that box, and I'm gonna go to my desktop because I wanna go to my Exercise Files folder, and the file that I want is in the subfolder 05, for chapter five.

I scroll down, and I find the Word document, Schematic_Approval_0501. When I select the file in the list, the address box adds the file name to that box. And also up at the top, Text to display, puts the file name. Let's say I don't want the file name there. I want something different. I can select that text and type something else. Let's say it's the Schematic Approval letter.

The hyperlink is all set up. All I have to do now is click OK. Nothing seems to change here, but that's because I need to add the Indicators column. So I'm gonna right click the Task Mode heading and choose Insert Column. Then, I'll add the Indicators field. When I do that in the Indicator cell there's a globe with a couple of links of chain, and when I point at the Indicator cell, besides telling me that the task was completed, it also has the link to the Schematic Approval letter.

Notice that that's the text that I typed in. If I wanna follow the hyperlink, all I have to do is click the icon. You may see a message about security. If you know that the file is safe, then just go ahead and click Yes. When you follow the hyperlink, your computer opens up the program and displays the file. Remember, it doesn't have to be a Word document. It could be an Excel spreadsheet or maybe even a scanned image of the signed letter. I'm gonna right click the Task again.

This time on the shortcut menu, the Hyperlink entry has several commands that you can use. The first one is Edit Hyperlink. Let's say that your Word document got stored in a different folder. So you could edit the hyperlink to point to the new location. You could also open the hyperlink from this menu, or you can copy copy it, or you can clear it if you don't need it anymore. Well, now let's take a look at another way to add a hyperlink, which is a hyperlink to another place in your project file.

You can only add one hyperlink to a task this way. So I'm gonna use the task Draft schematic drawings. Just like we did before, you right click the task, and then on the shortcut menu choose Hyperlink. This time, we wanna point to a different place in the document. The first thing I'm gonna do is in the Link to section choose Place in This Document. Now the cursor is the Enter task or resource ID field. Let's say that I wanna link to the Obtain approval for schematics task.

So it's task ID 6. I type that in the box. The next thing that I have to do is to select a view in the project. I'm gonna scroll up until I can see my views. Right now, I'm on the Gantt chart, but let's say that I wanna go to the Tracking Gantt instead. I scroll down until I see that view, and then I select it in the list. Now up at the top, the Text to display is the view, an exclamation point, and the task ID.

And that's okay, if that's what you want, but you can also replace that with something more meaningful. So I'm going to say it's the Schematic Approval task. I just type that in the Text to display box, and now we're ready to click OK. I have a hyperlink icon in the Indicator cell, and when I point at it, there's my text to display. Just like with the other hyperlink, if I click this icon notice it takes me to task number six in the Tracking Gantt.

If I click the bottom half of the Gantt Chart button, the checkbox is next to Tracking Gantt. If you wanna review hyperlinks quickly, the hyperlink table is ideal. On the View tab, I'm gonna click the Tables button, and down at the bottom I'll choose More Tables. That opens up the More Tables dialog box, where I can get to every table in my file and global template. All I have to do is select Hyperlink, and of course click Apply. The hyperlink table has the text to display in the Hyperlink column, but you can point at these to follow the links.

In addition, the table has an Address column, which actually shows the address that you're going to. So in this case, we've got a file that we're linked to. We also have the column SubAddress. With our hyperlink that goes to another place in the project file, that's where the view and the task ID sit. In all of these, they're underlined so you can follow the hyperlink by clicking any of them.