Linking Spreadsheets to Powerpoint

[LawrenceG]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Power PC

Forgive my ignorance about the Mac; I'm doing some research for a co-worker.

We do financial modeling in Mac for Excel where the resultant charts get copied into Powerpoint. These Powerpoint files go through extensive rounds of review, which end up causing the original model and its input to be changed many times. We end up doing a ridiculous number of repeat cut-and-paste operations getting updated Excel charts into Powerpoint.

My understanding is that Mac Office 2008 does *not* allow linking to Excel the same way you can in Windows, i.e., when you change the data in Excel, a linked chart in Powerpoint automatically gets updated. (I'm a PC guy, so I don't know the Mac very well.)

My question is...how do people get around this?

Is there a third-party application that can do this? MAC Office 2008 doesn't have Visual Basic, but is there another way to do macros or scripting on the MAC that would be helpful?

I have a hard time believing that there is no work-around for this. (Or does nobody do serious analysis on the Mac? OK, just kidding there.)

At this point, creating the presentation on the PC and moving it to a Mac is not an option. The presentations get shown to the highest level of the company and there have been too many glitches doing these conversions in the past to trust this method. Using PDF format is also not an option. The executives love their Powerpoint animations.

Any help you can provide to helpl me find a work-around would be much appreciated.

Lawrence

 

[LawrenceG]

I found the following article, which was helpful:

<http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/linkgraph.htm>

I'd be interested in other solutions/explanations/comments

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Lawrence -

Unfortunately I don't think there is a solution...

As the first sentence of Jim's article explicitly states, "... excluding
Office 2008". I've tried - unsuccessfully - to create a link to an excel
workbook via a similar method with 2008. Although I can link the data into
the chart datasheet & get the chart generated based on current data it
refuses to update. It tries, but the progress bar goes absolutely nowhere &
I have to close the file in order to terminate the process.

I haven't pursued it intensely, but I haven't seen any signs of
encouragement either. OLE implementation in Mac Office simply continues to
lag far behind its PC counterpart.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[LawrenceG]

Bob--

Thanks so much for responding to my post.

I have a few questions:

1) Are you aware of any other office suites (or graphing packages, for that matter) for the Mac that offer this functionality? Does the iWork suite allow live links with Keynote, for example?

2) The other solution is to write some sort of macro to automate the truly repetitive stuff. How might we do this? Can Applescript do this kind of thing? Office 2004 supports VBA (I think), but Office 2008 does not--so it looks like VBA is not a long-term option.

3) Whatever the potential solution you may have to question #2...can you recommend a place where I can find a high-quality vendor/consultant to implement a solution like this?

Thanks again for any help you can provide.

 

[CyberTaz]

I can't give you definitive answers to any of your questions ‹ I haven't
used Keynote [but I've not seen any indication that it supports links of
that type] and am not certain what other presentation software (if any on
the Mac) may support OLE.

You might do some investigation on the web, but my instincts tell me that if
your need to link is that critical your best bet is going to be PowerPoint
2007 running on Windows ‹ even if Windows is running on your Mac by way of
one of the VMs (Virtual PC 7 on a PowerMac; VMWare Fusion, Parallels, etc.
on an Intel Mac).

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

2) The other solution is to write some sort of macro to automate the truly

repetitive stuff. How might we do this? Can Applescript do this kind of thing?
Office 2004 supports VBA (I think), but Office 2008 does not--so it looks like
VBA is not a long-term option.

Oddly, it is. PPT 2004 supports VBA and MS has announced that the next
version of Office will support it as well. It's just 2008 that doesn't.

You can still do quite a lot towards automating 2008 using Applescript.

Paul Berkowitz has done a lot of the homework for you:
http://www.mactech.com/vba-transition-guide/index-001.html


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Lawrence -

Unfortunately I don't think there is a solution...

As the first sentence of Jim's article explicitly states, "... excluding
Office 2008". I've tried - unsuccessfully - to create a link to an excel
workbook via a similar method with 2008. Although I can link the data into
the chart datasheet & get the chart generated based on current data it
refuses to update. It tries, but the progress bar goes absolutely nowhere &
I have to close the file in order to terminate the process.

I haven't pursued it intensely, but I haven't seen any signs of
encouragement either. OLE implementation in Mac Office simply continues to
lag far behind its PC counterpart.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hi,

I just tried several times using PowerPoint 2008 and Excel 2008 with
Microsoft Graph 2008. No difficulties were encountered when updating the
linked data.

Remember to save the data source as a file before you use Paste Link.

At what point does the process fail for you? I don't see any progress
bar - the update happens instantaneously. What steps did you take to
attempt to update the link?

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are independent experts who are not affiliated with Microsoft.


Visit my blog
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-i7JMeio7cqvhotIUwCzaJWq9

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Jim -

I honestly haven't gone back to research this thoroughly yet but I'm certain
that what you suggested about going through MS Graph does still work in
2008. I'm also pretty sure that Insert> Object> MS Excel Chart works too,
but it's spotty. Another option that seems to work reasonably well is if you
create the chart in Excel, copy, then Paste Link to the Word doc - albeit a
bit slow My point was that you shouldn't have to go through any of those
gyrations in order to display a chart in Word linked to an existing table of
data in an Excel file.

IIRC I was using one of the Charts from the Elements Gallery & pasted the
link in the Excel datasheet supplied for that purpose. After changing,
saving & closing the data in the source file I went back to Word. Using the
command to Edit in Excel launched the program but did not bring it to the
foreground. Command+Tabbing to Excel brought Excel forward with no file
open. Instead there was an Open dialog with a progress bar which displayed
no progress along with the instruction to use Command+. to Cancel. The
command wouldn't Cancel & the dialog wouldn't go away, although Excel was
usable. I could open any file ‹ including the original source ‹ but the
sheet on which the chart was based never did appear nor was it accessible in
any way. On opening a file the progress bar progressed & disappeared. [I
believe it was the same one that normally appears when opening a workbook
but goes away so quickly you can't really get a good look at it.] IOW, you
can't get the datasheet open again if it's linked to the source file.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

Why did you use Word instead of PowerPoint?

-Jim

Hi Jim -

I honestly haven't gone back to research this thoroughly yet but I'm certain
that what you suggested about going through MS Graph does still work in
2008. I'm also pretty sure that Insert> Object> MS Excel Chart works too,
but it's spotty. Another option that seems to work reasonably well is if you
create the chart in Excel, copy, then Paste Link to the Word doc - albeit a
bit slow My point was that you shouldn't have to go through any of those
gyrations in order to display a chart in Word linked to an existing table of
data in an Excel file.

IIRC I was using one of the Charts from the Elements Gallery & pasted the
link in the Excel datasheet supplied for that purpose. After changing,
saving & closing the data in the source file I went back to Word. Using the
command to Edit in Excel launched the program but did not bring it to the
foreground. Command+Tabbing to Excel brought Excel forward with no file
open. Instead there was an Open dialog with a progress bar which displayed
no progress along with the instruction to use Command+. to Cancel. The
command wouldn't Cancel & the dialog wouldn't go away, although Excel was
usable. I could open any file ‹ including the original source ‹ but the
sheet on which the chart was based never did appear nor was it accessible in
any way. On opening a file the progress bar progressed & disappeared. [I
believe it was the same one that normally appears when opening a workbook
but goes away so quickly you can't really get a good look at it.] IOW, you
can't get the datasheet open again if it's linked to the source file.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hi,

I just tried several times using PowerPoint 2008 and Excel 2008 with
Microsoft Graph 2008. No difficulties were encountered when updating the
linked data.

Remember to save the data source as a file before you use Paste Link.

At what point does the process fail for you? I don't see any progress
bar - the update happens instantaneously. What steps did you take to
attempt to update the link?

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are independent experts who are not affiliated with Microsoft.


Visit my blog
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-i7JMeio7cqvhotIUwCzaJWq9

 

[CyberTaz]

BECAUSE I'M A SENILE OLD FART - YA HAPPY NOW???

Seriously - I've tried it in both Word & PPt with the same result

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hi,

Why did you use Word instead of PowerPoint?

-Jim

Hi Jim -

I honestly haven't gone back to research this thoroughly yet but I'm certain
that what you suggested about going through MS Graph does still work in
2008. I'm also pretty sure that Insert> Object> MS Excel Chart works too,
but it's spotty. Another option that seems to work reasonably well is if you
create the chart in Excel, copy, then Paste Link to the Word doc - albeit a
bit slow My point was that you shouldn't have to go through any of those
gyrations in order to display a chart in Word linked to an existing table of
data in an Excel file.

IIRC I was using one of the Charts from the Elements Gallery & pasted the
link in the Excel datasheet supplied for that purpose. After changing,
saving & closing the data in the source file I went back to Word. Using the
command to Edit in Excel launched the program but did not bring it to the
foreground. Command+Tabbing to Excel brought Excel forward with no file
open. Instead there was an Open dialog with a progress bar which displayed
no progress along with the instruction to use Command+. to Cancel. The
command wouldn't Cancel & the dialog wouldn't go away, although Excel was
usable. I could open any file ‹ including the original source ‹ but the
sheet on which the chart was based never did appear nor was it accessible in
any way. On opening a file the progress bar progressed & disappeared. [I
believe it was the same one that normally appears when opening a workbook
but goes away so quickly you can't really get a good look at it.] IOW, you
can't get the datasheet open again if it's linked to the source file.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

CyberTaz wrote:
Hi Lawrence -

Unfortunately I don't think there is a solution...

As the first sentence of Jim's article explicitly states, "... excluding
Office 2008". I've tried - unsuccessfully - to create a link to an excel
workbook via a similar method with 2008. Although I can link the data into
the chart datasheet & get the chart generated based on current data it
refuses to update. It tries, but the progress bar goes absolutely nowhere &
I have to close the file in order to terminate the process.

I haven't pursued it intensely, but I haven't seen any signs of
encouragement either. OLE implementation in Mac Office simply continues to
lag far behind its PC counterpart.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 8/29/08 5:37 PM, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,

I found the following article, which was helpful:

<http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/linkgraph.htm>

I'd be interested in other solutions/explanations/comments
Hi,

I just tried several times using PowerPoint 2008 and Excel 2008 with
Microsoft Graph 2008. No difficulties were encountered when updating the
linked data.

Remember to save the data source as a file before you use Paste Link.

At what point does the process fail for you? I don't see any progress
bar - the update happens instantaneously. What steps did you take to
attempt to update the link?

-Jim

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

ROFL!!

OK. I just wanted to be sure before I updated the web page.

Thanks.

-Jim

BECAUSE I'M A SENILE OLD FART - YA HAPPY NOW???

Seriously - I've tried it in both Word & PPt with the same result

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Hi,

Why did you use Word instead of PowerPoint?

-Jim

Hi Jim -

I honestly haven't gone back to research this thoroughly yet but I'm certain
that what you suggested about going through MS Graph does still work in
2008. I'm also pretty sure that Insert> Object> MS Excel Chart works too,
but it's spotty. Another option that seems to work reasonably well is if you
create the chart in Excel, copy, then Paste Link to the Word doc - albeit a
bit slow My point was that you shouldn't have to go through any of those
gyrations in order to display a chart in Word linked to an existing table of
data in an Excel file.

IIRC I was using one of the Charts from the Elements Gallery & pasted the
link in the Excel datasheet supplied for that purpose. After changing,
saving & closing the data in the source file I went back to Word. Using the
command to Edit in Excel launched the program but did not bring it to the
foreground. Command+Tabbing to Excel brought Excel forward with no file
open. Instead there was an Open dialog with a progress bar which displayed
no progress along with the instruction to use Command+. to Cancel. The
command wouldn't Cancel & the dialog wouldn't go away, although Excel was
usable. I could open any file ‹ including the original source ‹ but the
sheet on which the chart was based never did appear nor was it accessible in
any way. On opening a file the progress bar progressed & disappeared. [I
believe it was the same one that normally appears when opening a workbook
but goes away so quickly you can't really get a good look at it.] IOW, you
can't get the datasheet open again if it's linked to the source file.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac


On 9/2/08 10:58 PM, in article (e-mail address removed), "Jim

CyberTaz wrote:
Hi Lawrence -

Unfortunately I don't think there is a solution...

As the first sentence of Jim's article explicitly states, "... excluding
Office 2008". I've tried - unsuccessfully - to create a link to an excel
workbook via a similar method with 2008. Although I can link the data into
the chart datasheet & get the chart generated based on current data it
refuses to update. It tries, but the progress bar goes absolutely nowhere &
I have to close the file in order to terminate the process.

I haven't pursued it intensely, but I haven't seen any signs of
encouragement either. OLE implementation in Mac Office simply continues to
lag far behind its PC counterpart.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac



On 8/29/08 5:37 PM, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,

I found the following article, which was helpful:

<http://www.agentjim.com/MVP/linkgraph.htm>

I'd be interested in other solutions/explanations/comments
Hi,

I just tried several times using PowerPoint 2008 and Excel 2008 with
Microsoft Graph 2008. No difficulties were encountered when updating the
linked data.

Remember to save the data source as a file before you use Paste Link.

At what point does the process fail for you? I don't see any progress
bar - the update happens instantaneously. What steps did you take to
attempt to update the link?

-Jim