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Linking and Embedding Excel Data
There are several ways of bringing foreign objects such as Excel data into your presentation. The method you choose depends on how you want the object to behave once it arrives. You can make the inserted content into a full citizen of the presentation in a PowerPoint table-that is, with no ties of any kind to its source-or, you can help it retain a connection to either the original data file or to the original application in which it was created.
Both of those latter options have a price, however, in terms of larger file size (in the case of embedding) and dependence on the availability of another file for updating (in the case of linking). Therefore, you should use linking and embedding strategically for specific purposes, and not as a general rule.
Embedding maintains the relationship between that data and its native application. In the case of Excel data, it would "remember" that it came from Excel, and you could double-click it within PowerPoint to edit it within Excel.
Linking maintains the relationship between that data and the original data file from which it was copied. When changes are made in the original, they are reflected in the copy in PowerPoint.
You can link or embed entire files or just snippets of files. There are separate procedures for each, which I'll outline in the following sections.
The information in these sections will serve you well when working with other types of content too, not just Excel, although I'll be focusing on Excel here.
Embedding Selected Cells From an Excel Worksheet
Technically, there is no such thing as embedding "selected cells" from a worksheet into PowerPoint. If you embed an existing file, you get the entire file-which impacts the size of the PowerPoint file, of course. However, you can appear to embed only Figure 6-24).
Another way is with the Paste Special command, as follows:
Copy normally in Excel.
In PowerPoint, choose Edit⇨Paste Special.
In the Paste Special dialog box, choose Paste.
Select Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object as the type (see Figure 6-25).
Click OK.
Figure 6-25: Use Paste Special to specify how the pasted item should appear, and then select Excel Object as the type.
You will then be able to double-click the pasted object in PowerPoint to make Excel's menus and toolbars appear to help with its editing.
Embedding an Entire Excel Workbook
Again, technically all Excel embedding embeds an entire workbook, but in this case we are talking about showing the entire contents in PowerPoint. For example, if your Excel workbook file consists of a single worksheet with a single tabular range of cells, you might want to show it all.
To embed the entire contents of a saved workbook, do the following:
In PowerPoint, display the slide on which you want to place the embedded object.
Choose Insert⇨Object.
Click the Create from File button. The controls change to those shown in Figure 6-26.
Click Browse and use the Browse dialog box to locate the file you want; then click OK to accept the file name.
Click OK. The file is inserted on the slide.
Figure 6-26: Enter the file name or browse for it with the Browse button.
You can tell that it is embedded, rather than simply copied, because when you double-click it, it opens in Excel. In contrast, when you double-click some Excel data that has been copied into PowerPoint as a PowerPoint table, the Format Table dialog box opens.
Embedding a New Excel Workbook
If you haven't already created the tabular data in Excel, you have your choice: you can use a PowerPoint table, or you can embed a new Excel object. I don't use embedded Excel worksheets for ordinary tables because of the increased file size, but I do use them whenever I need to perform calculations within a table because of Excel's extensive collection of functions.
To embed a new Excel worksheet, do the following:
Display the slide on which you want to put it.
Choose Insert⇨Object.
Click Create New. A list of available object types appears. This list comes from the installed applications on your system, so yours will be different than the ones shown in Figure 6-27.
Click Microsoft Excel Worksheet and click OK.
A frame appears on the slide with Excel cells inside it. Type the data into the cells. Resize it as needed to show more or fewer cells. Notice that the menus and toolbars are Excel's, not PowerPoint's, while the object is active.
Click away from the object to return control to PowerPoint.
Move and resize the object on the slide as necessary.
Figure 6-27: Choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet as the type of new object to embed.
Linking Selected Cells From an Excel Worksheet
Linking maintains a relationship to the original data file, so you would do this only if you thought that the Excel copy was going to change and you wanted those changes to be reflected in PowerPoint.
To link selected cells from an existing worksheet, follow the steps under Embedding Selected Cells from an Excel Worksheet except in step 3, click Paste Link instead of Paste. Everything else is the same.
| Caution | Use linking only when its unique functionality is required. Linking is not a good general-purpose practice because the link relies on both files remaining in the same location (or, at least in relation to one another). For example, if you link to an Excel file called Solution.xls that's in the same folder as your PowerPoint file, and then you move Solution.xls somewhere else, PowerPoint won't be able to find it, and an error will appear when you open the PowerPoint file. (You can redirect the link, which I'll explain later in the chapter, but it's still a pain.) Linking also makes the process of opening and closing the PowerPoint file take longer because the links have to be updated. |
Linking an Entire Workbook
To link the entire workbook, follow the steps under Embedding an Entire Excel Workbook earlier in the chapter, but mark the Link checkbox before clicking OK in the last step.
Editing an Embedded Excel Workbook
When an embedded worksheet is selected, you can choose Edit⇨Worksheet Object or right-click and choose Worksheet Object to see a menu of things you can do to it as follows:
Edit: This option activates the object with Excel's menus and toolbars within PowerPoint. You can also do the same thing by double-clicking the object on the slide.
Open: This option opens the object in the full-blown Excel window, outside of PowerPoint.
Convert: This option allows you to convert the object to some other format. For an Excel worksheet, the only option is Excel Chart. Do this if you want to show the data graphically rather than as a table.
The above also work with linked workbook data except the command on the Edit menu is Linked Worksheet Object.
Managing Workbook Links
Working with linked data from Excel? Here are some things you can do to it.
UPDATING LINKS
Links are automatically updated each time you open your PowerPoint file. However, updating these links slows down the file opening considerably, so if you have to open and close the file frequently, you might want to set the link updating to Manual. That way the links are updated only when you issue a command to update them.
To set a link to update manually, follow these steps:
Choose Edit⇨Links. The Links dialog box appears (see Figure 6-28). If the Links command does not appear on the Edit menu, there are no links.
Click the link you want to change, and click the Manual button.
If you want to manually update a link now, select it and click the Update Now button.
Click OK to close the dialog box.
Save the presentation to save the changes to the link settings.
Figure 6-28: You can change the update setting for a link here.
When you set a link to manual, you have to open the Links dialog box and click Update Now each time you want to update it, or right-click the object and choose Update Link for its shortcut menu.
BREAKING A LINK
When you break a link, the object remains in the presentation, but it becomes a picture. So, for example, if you break the link for an Excel worksheet object, it becomes a picture of a worksheet object. You can't edit it in Excel anymore; when you double-click it, a Format Picture dialog box appears. The embedding information disappears too.
To break a link, reopen the Links dialog box (refer to Figure 6-28), click the link to break, and then click Break Link. If a warning appears, click OK.
CHANGING THE REFERENCED LOCATION OF A LINK
If you move files around on your hard disk or move them to other disks, you might need to change the link location reference. For example, perhaps you are moving the presentation file to a ZIP disk, and you want to place the linked workbook file in a separate folder on the ZIP disk.
To change a link reference, do the following:
Copy or move the files where you want them. For example, if you are going to be transferring the presentation and linked files to a floppy, do that first.
In the copy location, open the PowerPoint presentation. You'll see an error about the linked files missing; ignore it.
Choose Edit⇨Links. The Links dialog box appears.
Click the link you want to change and click Change Source. A Change Source dialog box opens.
Select the file to be linked from its new location and click Open. The link is updated.
In the Links dialog box, click Close.
Save your work.
| Caution | If you change the location of the link to a different file (for example, a different workbook), the link will refer to the entire file, as if you had inserted it with Insert⇨Object. If you used Edit⇨Paste Special, Paste Link to insert only a part of the original file, that aspect might be lost and the entire file might appear as the object in the presentation. In such a situation it is better to delete the object and recreate the link from scratch. |
