It’s possible to present Excel data to your colleagues using Excel exclusively, but if you’re developing a formal presentation, you might want to use PowerPoint. Because presentations often contain graphic representations of numerical data, it’s easy to include your Excel data in a PowerPoint presentation.
When you copy an Excel chart into a PowerPoint presentation, you can select how you want PowerPoint to manage the chart and its data. If you don’t make any changes, PowerPoint creates the chart and maintains a link to the workbook from which it came. You can also choose to paste the entire workbook into PowerPoint or paste a picture of the chart’s current state.
Move Excel Data to PowerPoint
In Excel, select the cells you want to export.
Click the Home tab.
Click the Copy button.
In PowerPoint, click the location where you want the pasted cells to appear.
Click the Home tab.
Click the Paste button.
Copy an Excel Chart to PowerPoint
In Excel, select the chart you want to export.
Click the Home tab.
Click the Copy button.
Tip
When you paste an Excel chart into a PowerPoint presentation, clicking the Paste Options button also enables you to select whether you want the chart to retain its original appearance (that is, its Office theme), or to change its appearance based on the presentation’s theme.
In PowerPoint, click the location where you want the pasted chart to appear.
Click the Home tab.
Click the Paste button.
Click the Paste Options button.
Follow any of these steps:
Click the Chart (Linked To Excel Data) option to paste the chart into the presentation and retain a live link to the source workbook.
Click the Excel Chart (Entire Workbook) option to paste the chart and a copy of the workbook to the presentation.
Click the Paste As Picture option to paste an image of the chart into the presentation.
Caution
Neither of the latter two options maintains a live link between the chart and its original workbook. In the first case, you paste a copy of the data into the PowerPoint presentation; in the second, you’re just taking a picture of the chart and pasting that into the presentation.
In PowerPoint, click the location where you want the pasted chart to appear.
