# Communication Between Programs: Object Linking and Embedding

Sometimes you need more than one program to manage your projects. For example, you may want to track, store, and calculate project costs in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and then transfer that data to Microsoft Project.

Doing this the slow way, you’d update that information first in one program and then in the other, perhaps repeating this process many times. But it’s more efficient to update the information in just one program and have the update appear in the second program automatically. When you embed an object or create a link to it using object linking and embedding (OLE), that’s just what happens. When you double-click the object, you automatically open the program in which it was originally created. If you want to add objects that reside in several source files, you can link or embed more than one object within a destination file.

Both linked and embedded objects are generated by a source program and displayed in a destination program. When placed in a Microsoft Project graphics area, an OLE object can be represented as either a graphic or an icon. When placed in a sheet view, an OLE object can be represented as text — looking and behaving as if you had typed the information directly into the project file.

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