1. On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.
2. In the Task Name field, select two or more tasks you want to link in the order you want to link them.
   • To select nonadjacent tasks, hold down CTRL, and then click the tasks you want to link.
   • To select adjacent tasks, hold down SHIFT, and then click the first and last tasks you want to link.
3. Click Link Tasks .

   Microsoft Office Project 2003 creates a finish-to-start task link by default. You can change this task link to start-to-start, finish-to-finish, or start-to-finish.

Note  If you want to unlink tasks, select the tasks you want to unlink in the Task Name field, and then click Unlink Tasks . The tasks are rescheduled based on links to other tasks or constraints (constraint: A restriction set on the start or finish date of a task. You can specify that a task must start on or finish no later than a particular date. Constraints can be flexible [not tied to a specific date] or inflexible [tied to a specific date].).

You can create a dependency between tasks in different projects.

Note  The externally linked task appears dimmed in the task list. Double-clicking a task with an external successor (successor: A task that cannot start or finish until another task starts or finishes.) or an external predecessor (predecessor: A task that must start or finish before another task can start or finish.) opens the project containing the external task (external task: A task that represents a linked task in another project, providing an easy way to review the attributes of linked tasks without switching between projects. An external task can be changed only in the source project.) if the project is available.

1. Open both projects: the project containing the task you want to link to and the project containing the task you want to link from.

   On the Window menu of one of the projects, click Arrange All.

2. In the Task Name field, click the task for which you want to create a dependency to an external predecessor.
3. Click Task Information , and then click the Predecessors tab.
4. In the ID column, type the project name and ID number of the external predecessor, separated by a backslash, for example Project1\1 for Task ID 1 in a file named Project1.

   Note  When you link tasks in different projects that are stored in Microsoft Office Project Server 2003, the predecessor's task ID must be formatted correctly. In the Task Information dialog box, on the Predecessors tab, in the ID column, the task ID must be formatted as shown in the following example: <>\project1.published\42. In this example, the angle brackets (<>) contain no information, project1.published is the name of the project containing the predecessor, and 42 is the task ID of the predecessor task.

5. To change the task dependency (task dependencies: A relationship between two linked tasks; linked by a dependency between their finish and start dates. There are four kinds of task dependencies: Finish-to-start[FS], Start-to-start [SS], Finish-to-finish [FF], and Start-to-finish [SF].) to a type other than finish-to-start, select a different dependency type in the Type column.
6. To enter lag time (lag time: A delay between tasks that have a dependency. For example, if you need a two-day delay between the finish of one task and the start of another, you can establish a finish-to-start dependency and specify a two-day lag time [has a positive value].) for the dependency, enter a value in the Lag column.

   To enter lead time (lead time: An overlap between tasks that have a dependency. For example, if a task can start when its predecessor is half-finished, you can specify a finish-to-start dependency with a lead time of 50 percent for its successor [has a negative lag value].), enter a negative value in the Lag column, such as –2 for two days of lead time.

Note  If you want to unlink tasks, select the tasks you want to unlink in the Task Name field, and then click Unlink Tasks . The tasks are rescheduled based on links to other tasks or constraints (constraint: A restriction set on the start or finish date of a task. You can specify that a task must start on or finish no later than a particular date. Constraints can be flexible [not tied to a specific date] or inflexible [tied to a specific date].).