Linking Charts from Excel

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vicky
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Vicky

Is there a benefit to Insert - Object - Excel
vs.
Copying the chart in Excel and Paste Special w/ link in PPT?

When would you use each of these methods?

Thanks in advance
 
Hi,

Linking is good when you:

Want to have charts that update with dynamic data.

It is bad when:

You move your presentation without sending the linked data. also, please
have a read of this:

Links break: http://pptfaq.com/FAQ00155.htm

Excel data cut off: http://pptfaq.com/FAQ00068.htm

--

Regards,
Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP

Please tell us your PowerPoint version

Tutorials and PowerPoint animations at
the original www.pptworkbench.com
glen at pptworkbench dot com
 
Is there a benefit to Insert - Object - Excel
vs.
Copying the chart in Excel and Paste Special w/ link in PPT?

When would you use each of these methods?
Click to expand...

That's two questions, really. To add stuff from other programs into your PPT
presentation, you can do it via Insert Object or Copy/Paste or
Copy/Paste/Special. Either way, you can generally choose to link or not (and
if you choose not, you get an embedded object).

I'd almost never use Insert Object because it gives you little or no control
over what appears in your presentation. You choose the file, and Excel's left
to decide what bit of the file to show.

Instead, I'd open the file in Excel, select and copy the part I want to display
in PPT and then Copy/Paste Special, as Excel Worksheet or Chart object.

That leads to the Link or Embed decision, which pans out pretty much as Glen
describes it. The only thing I'd add is that if you embed, you get the whole
Excel file dropped into your PPT, even if you only copy/paste a single cell.
And the whole Excel file again for each add'l embed you do. That can pork up
your PPTs right quick (and may represent a security risk ... if you're not
careful, you could give away more than you think).
 
Vicky,
Now there goes Steve again. In spite of us being very good friends,
the only thing two things we agree about are:
1. We hardly ever agree on anything other than #2
2. Steve's wife is a lovely beautiful really nice person.

Glen covered linking which I gave up years ago since it can be very
fragile. It can be managed if you really know what you are doing and
who knows that? Certainly not me. Now there are three things Steve and
I agree on!

I almost always use Insert Object since I want the data to go along
with the chart. But I ALWAYS copy the chart sheet and data worksheet
from Excel to a new workbook, save it and use Insert object, then
delete the intermediate workbook for housekeeping since it is now in
PPT and fully editable there.

Jon Peltier, an Excel MVP, who also works in PPT prefers to copy the
chart in Excel as a Picture, (Shift + Edit + Copy as Picture) and then
pastes into PPT and the chart is fine but there is no data associated
with it since it is now a picture. I have used this quite successfully
when I do not want to release real editable data (think Wall St SEC
requirements).

Just be cautious when taking advice from Steve relating to Excel. Now
there are four things he and I can agree on. (vbg)

Brian Reilly, MVP
 
Vicky,
Now there goes Steve again. In spite of us being very good friends,
the only thing two things we agree about are:
1. We hardly ever agree on anything other than #2
2. Steve's wife is a lovely beautiful really nice person.
Click to expand...

See? You always mess up. You went and forgot the cats again. Tsk.
Glen covered linking which I gave up years ago since it can be very
fragile. It can be managed if you really know what you are doing and
who knows that? Certainly not me. Now there are three things Steve and
I agree on!

I almost always use Insert Object since I want the data to go along
with the chart. But I ALWAYS copy the chart sheet and data worksheet
from Excel to a new workbook, save it and use Insert object, then
delete the intermediate workbook for housekeeping since it is now in
PPT and fully editable there.

Jon Peltier, an Excel MVP, who also works in PPT prefers to copy the
chart in Excel as a Picture, (Shift + Edit + Copy as Picture) and then
pastes into PPT and the chart is fine but there is no data associated
with it since it is now a picture. I have used this quite successfully
when I do not want to release real editable data (think Wall St SEC
requirements).

Just be cautious when taking advice from Steve relating to Excel. Now
there are four things he and I can agree on. (vbg)
Click to expand...

Five. Be cautions when taking advice from Brian relating to caution taking Steve's
advice. ;-)
 
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