PP2007, Tables as 'SmartArt' ? (or 3D linked tables - how?)

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Guest

hello again!

My current bemoth of a presentation is gathering place, I am now at the
point of inserting rams of financial information from excel, on multiple
slides. Much of this content takes the forms of tables (a branh P&L for
example). Whereas I can link to the excel table I would like to do a little
more - I would like to format all of my tables as 3d objects width depth and
perspective, and animate them accordingly.

However whereas I can do this with shapes, tect boxes and smart art, this
functionality does not seem to be available for tables ? How can I best keep
the '3d' nature of my presentation ? (all non bulleted contect thus far is
presented in 'perspective' thus to introduce a flat table really breaks the
looka nd flow of the presentation).

Can I for example perform the formatting in excel first ? Is the linking
causing my issue ?

many thanks in advance once more!
 
Well, from what I can tell, if I copy cells in Excl and use Paste
Special|Linked Excel object, the resulting linked object is considered a
special kind of object, and, although the Drawing Tools Format ribbon is
available, most of the features on the ribbon are not. Basically, you get
shapes/textbox insertion, align and Z-order, and size options, but nothing
with fills, outlines, effects, or WordArt.

If I just paste the copied Excel cells into PPT, I get a PPT table, so the
Table Tools Design and Layout tabs show up. It seems 3D options are not
available for tables. Shadow and Reflection are your only effect options on
the Home tab, but if you choose Effects on the Table Tools Design tab, you
also get a cell bevel option. This could be used to give the cells a little
bit of depth. In my opinion, the ones that go in (slope, hard edge)
generally look better than the ones that go out (riblet, circle) -- although
Angle looks okay.

If you copy the cells and Paste Special as WMF or EMF (or probably even
bitmap, although I didn't try it), you will get Picture Tools. You can apply
3D effects to pictures, so that might be an option. (You can also turn your
already-linked Excel objects into pictures by right-clicking and choosing
Save As Picture. I'd recommend saving as PNG since you have text, and PNG
text generally seems smoother to me than JPG text does.)

But nope, I don't think either Excel objects or true PPT tables have actual
3D options. And animating objects created with the aforementioned techniques
would be pretty impossible.

Oh, I know. You can paste special as WMF/EMF and then ungroup twice. That
will break your table into a bunch of little individual pieces you can group
and apply 3D to and animate as needed. It will be tedious, though.
 
Many thanks! At least it seems that we have the same experience! I had also
tried insering a table within a piece of smart art - also soes not work!

PNG files look like the way forward, thanks again for your help.

Echo S said:
Well, from what I can tell, if I copy cells in Excl and use Paste
Special|Linked Excel object, the resulting linked object is considered a
special kind of object, and, although the Drawing Tools Format ribbon is
available, most of the features on the ribbon are not. Basically, you get
shapes/textbox insertion, align and Z-order, and size options, but nothing
with fills, outlines, effects, or WordArt.

If I just paste the copied Excel cells into PPT, I get a PPT table, so the
Table Tools Design and Layout tabs show up. It seems 3D options are not
available for tables. Shadow and Reflection are your only effect options on
the Home tab, but if you choose Effects on the Table Tools Design tab, you
also get a cell bevel option. This could be used to give the cells a little
bit of depth. In my opinion, the ones that go in (slope, hard edge)
generally look better than the ones that go out (riblet, circle) -- although
Angle looks okay.

If you copy the cells and Paste Special as WMF or EMF (or probably even
bitmap, although I didn't try it), you will get Picture Tools. You can apply
3D effects to pictures, so that might be an option. (You can also turn your
already-linked Excel objects into pictures by right-clicking and choosing
Save As Picture. I'd recommend saving as PNG since you have text, and PNG
text generally seems smoother to me than JPG text does.)

But nope, I don't think either Excel objects or true PPT tables have actual
3D options. And animating objects created with the aforementioned techniques
would be pretty impossible.

Oh, I know. You can paste special as WMF/EMF and then ungroup twice. That
will break your table into a bunch of little individual pieces you can group
and apply 3D to and animate as needed. It will be tedious, though.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/

Martin Dean said:
hello again!

My current bemoth of a presentation is gathering place, I am now at the
point of inserting rams of financial information from excel, on multiple
slides. Much of this content takes the forms of tables (a branh P&L for
example). Whereas I can link to the excel table I would like to do a
little
more - I would like to format all of my tables as 3d objects width depth
and
perspective, and animate them accordingly.

However whereas I can do this with shapes, tect boxes and smart art, this
functionality does not seem to be available for tables ? How can I best
keep
the '3d' nature of my presentation ? (all non bulleted contect thus far is
presented in 'perspective' thus to introduce a flat table really breaks
the
looka nd flow of the presentation).

Can I for example perform the formatting in excel first ? Is the linking
causing my issue ?

many thanks in advance once more!
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