Copying an Excel chart into Word

[Guest]

The font of category axis (set at 45 degrees) becomes grainy and changes size
when I copy it into Word (tried all three paste special options -- picture,
ms object and picture meta (each skewed the font somewhere in the object).
Can this be prevented?

I also opened a new Word doc and created it by going to Excel from that
location. When I closed Excel the category axis font in this chart again
skewed; however if I copied the chart while stil in Excel (via Word), all
fonts copied correctly. Any idea what the issue is?

Carolyn

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Carolyn

I don't think there's a straight-forward answer to your problem, and no-one
has come along to proffer an immediate solution.

I would try the following (meaning: I have no idea whether they will work,
but if I was experiencing this problem, these are the things I might do):

- try copying as a picture from Excel (select the chart, hold down Shift and
do Edit > Copy Picture, choose the "when printed" options, and then paste
into Word)

- make sure both Word and Excel have the same default printer

- update the printer driver from the website of the printer manufacturer

- update the graphics driver from the website of the graphics card
manufacturer

- only use very "standard" fonts, like Arial

- (desperation stage) make the rows immediately above and below the chart
very short, and make the columns immediately to the left and right of the
chart very narrow, and then copy the cells around the chart with the chart,
and paste as an Excel Worksheet object

- (give up stage) find shorter terms for the categories so you can display
the text horizontally<g>

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word

 

[Guest]

Dear Shauna:

Thank you very much for your detailed and helpful reply. Copying as a
picture from Excel seemed to help a lot. It was still grainy on the screen
but printed just fine. It was also helpful to know that this is a dicey
endeavor -- the number of possible controls you listed made me feel better
about my not finding some kind of fix.

My best,

Carolyn

 

[Shauna Kelly]

Hi Carolyn

I'm glad pasting as a picture worked. I always paste Excel graphs as a
picture.

However, there's one other thing I should have thought about earlier:
programs like Citrix Metaframe can really mess up printing. If you're using
something like that to log into a network, try saving the file down to the
local drive, then open Word on the local machine and print from there.

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word