Embedding across Office

[Guest]

Hi, I'm trying to do the following. Use Excel to generate data which is loaded and used to create graphs in Powerpoint(With other graphics/arrows pointing to certain data elements), which then are embedded in Word documents. The idea is that any change in Excel ripples through PPT and then to the final Word document. The problem is simple, the final files are huge!(50Mb word files from 100 cell excel data, and 15 slide PPT files!!) It seems that every act of embedding embeds the whole file, not just the few cells from excel, and only the required simple graphs from PPT

I've tried all the combos of paste/link/hyperlink/paste special that I can think of but I either loose the linkage or I end up with massive files

Any experts out there who can help?

 

[Brian Reilly, MS MVP]

Chris,
First it doesn't seem to make sense to make the charts here in PPT
when you could make them in Excel.
Second, you could just copy the charts from Excel right into Word.
Third, the way around embedding the entire file is to copy the chart
in Excel to a new single worksheet workbook, Save that and copy that
single chart into Word. Then kill the single sheet workbook file.

Brian Reilly, PowerPoint MVP

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi, I'm trying to do the following. Use Excel to generate data which is

loaded and used to create graphs in Powerpoint(With other graphics/arrows
pointing to certain data elements), which then are embedded in Word
documents. The idea is that any change in Excel ripples through PPT and
then to the final Word document. The problem is simple, the final files are
huge!(50Mb word files from 100 cell excel data, and 15 slide PPT files!!)
It seems that every act of embedding embeds the whole file, not just the
few cells from excel, and only the required simple graphs from PPT.

I've tried all the combos of paste/link/hyperlink/paste special that I

can think of but I either loose the linkage or I end up with massive files.


I think perhaps you have a fundamental problem here:

If you embed the stuff from Excel into PPT or from PPT into Word, then it
won't update when the original changes. The "original" as far as the host
application is concerned is the copy that's embedded into it.

If you link from Excel to PPT to Word, the files will be much smaller but
you have a different problem: Word will update itself when linked PPT
content changes, but the PPT won't change unless you open it, because only
then will it check and update the links to the Excel content.

Activating the PPT content within Word might get the job done for you (ie,
doubleclicking each instance, but obviously that's no fun either).

It might be best to rethink this in a way that doesn't involve links to
links to links to ....

 

[Guest]

Brian and Steve, Firstly thanks for your quick reply. As I understand it, the essence of your answers are "Don't try and do it by linking 'cos it will end in tears" OK, then let me explain why I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do in more detail, and perhaps you could help craft me a solution...

The PPT is input to demo which in fact ends up running on 8 pc's at once, the word document a script that goes with the demo and which contains copies of the Powerpoint slides embedded in speaker notes that must never, never be seen by a recipient of the powerpoint if the PPT is sent to an audience member afterwards. The excel spreadsheet contains data which is dynamicly updated every hour from other sources, and depending on the content of the data will derive possibly very different demo results
Therefore, it's essential to keep XL, PPT and Word separate, in-sync and up-to-date, and my expectation is that as each is opened before the demo, the "This program contains links, do you want to update them etc" will do the job
The demos also need to be e-mailed around the world as they are modified to reflect market changes, hence the problem over file sizes
So, with all that in mind, is there a fix? It seems inefficient to me that if there are only 3 files, that the linkage system demands that rather than saying "Embed slide 5 from abc, embed slide 10 from the file I've already got, etcetc, it embeds the whole PPT slideset everytime
Dunno, if it is a bridge to far, I'll give up, but as Office is sold as a suite of interoperable products, I kind of assumed that the linkage would be a bit more elegant than this. I must have it wrong - please help me

Chris

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Brian and Steve, Firstly thanks for your quick reply. As I

understand it, the essence of your answers are "Don't try and do it by
linking 'cos it will end in tears" >>

Not at all! More like "Don't try and do it by linking to links that
link to links that link to ..."

The PPT is input to demo which in fact ends up running on 8 pc's at

once, the word document a script that goes with the demo and which
contains copies of the Powerpoint slides embedded in speaker notes
that must never, never be seen by a recipient of the powerpoint if the
PPT is sent to an audience member afterwards. The excel spreadsheet
contains data which is dynamicly updated every hour from other
sources, and depending on the content of the data will derive possibly
very different demo results.

Could you run through that again but this time be *very* specific
about what the end result is and in your use of terms. I can't tell
whether you mean "speaker notes" generically or in the PPT sense of
Speaker Notes pages.

Therefore, it's essential to keep XL, PPT and Word separate, in-sync

and up-to-date, and my expectation is that as each is opened before
the demo, the "This program contains links, do you want to update them
etc" will do the job.

The demos also need to be e-mailed around the world as they are

modified to reflect market changes, hence the problem over file sizes.

So, with all that in mind, is there a fix?

linkage system demands that rather than saying "Embed slide 5 from
abc, embed slide 10 from the file I've already got, etcetc, it embeds
the whole PPT slideset everytime.

You're confusing linking with embedding. They're not the same. In
fact for your purposes, they're opposites. EMBEDDING embeds the whole
source file as a rule, and does NOT produce links that update from a
source file. There's no connection to the source file, just to the
copy of it that's embedded. LINKS don't embed much but a WMF picture
of the data and a pointer to the source file.

Dunno, if it is a bridge to far, I'll give up, but as Office is sold

as a suite of interoperable products, I kind of assumed that the
linkage would be a bit more elegant than this. I must have it wrong -
please help me.

 

[Guest]

Steve, thanks for your reply. Here's some more detail..
The "Speaker Notes" is a freestanding word document(It's done this way so that the audience don't end up with a copy if we e-mail the PPT at the end of the presentation
The workflow is:
Excel spreadsheet gets updated with various statistics from other source
Immediately before the presentation,The Speaker is required to open Powerpoint and allow it to update from Exce
The Speaker then open Word, and allows it to update from Powerpoin
The Speaker Notes contain an image of each slide, some fixed text, and some text dependant on the values stored in Excel(i.e. "Note how good this is", or "Note how bad this is" dependant on a cell value
One of the complications is that the demo runs on 8 PC's at once with the PPT acting as a guide to the presenter. So in the event that PPT/Word are showing "Bad" then the presenter shows screens 1,2,3 of an application, if it shows "good" he is required to show 4,5,6, but only if the audience are the right level(i.e. this step can't be automated, the presenter looks at the graphs and makes a judgement call
Some stats..The spreadsheet is 320K, and is queried 22 times by PPT, extracting an average of 80 cells each time, the PPT is 32 slides of which 18 are "dynamic" and is 1.1MB in size the word document contains an image of every PPT. The unlinked word document is 900K in size, the linked one is 52Mbytes! The current linking mechanism is "Copy"+"Paste Special/Paste Link
So, with apologies if I'm using the wrong terminology, I'm trying to "Link" the files, but what seems to be happening is that the final word document seems to be embedding a complete copy of the PPT everytime I reference it.
I hope this makes more sense
Thanks for your help so far
Chris

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Chris, thanks. This helps a lot.

The "Speaker Notes" is a freestanding word document(It's done this way so

that the audience don't end up with a copy if we e-mail the PPT at the end
of the presentation)

One thing that occurs to me right off: would this work if the speaker
notes were in fact PowerPoint speaker notes? It only takes a simple macro
to remove them from the PPT. A thought ... I can see why you'd want to
stick with the separate Word doc. No chance of sending the wrong,
un-scrubbed PPT file that way.

The workflow is:-
Excel spreadsheet gets updated with various statistics from other sources
Immediately before the presentation,The Speaker is required to open

Powerpoint and allow it to update from Excel

The Speaker then open Word, and allows it to update from Powerpoint
The Speaker Notes contain an image of each slide, some fixed text, and

some text dependant on the values stored in Excel(i.e. "Note how good this
is", or "Note how bad this is" dependant on a cell value)

One of the complications is that the demo runs on 8 PC's at once with the

PPT acting as a guide to the presenter. So in the event that PPT/Word are
showing "Bad" then the presenter shows screens 1,2,3 of an application, if
it shows "good" he is required to show 4,5,6, but only if the audience are
the right level(i.e. this step can't be automated, the presenter looks at
the graphs and makes a judgement call)

Some stats..The spreadsheet is 320K, and is queried 22 times by PPT,

extracting an average of 80 cells each time, the PPT is 32 slides of which
18 are "dynamic" and is 1.1MB in size the word document contains an image
of every PPT. The unlinked word document is 900K in size, the linked one is
52Mbytes! The current linking mechanism is "Copy"+"Paste Special/Paste
Link"

What do you see on the list of pasteable objects when you click "Link"
after choosing Paste Special? Which are you choosing?

After doing that, when you choose Edit, Links and click one of these
fellas, what does Word show as the Link Type?

I'm wondering whether you or PPT/Word are somehow linking the presentation
vs a Slide.

Here's another thought: what about using images instead of copy/linked
slides? It'd be one more step for the user, but would result in much
smaller, faster Word files.

Start with a sample presentation, export all of the slides to e.g. PNG or
JPG files (File, Save As, choose the file type you want and go). Then in
Word use Insert, Picture, From File and choose Link (click the down-arrow
to the right of the OK button to get the Link option).

Each time you open the Word doc, it'll search the folder with the images in
it for updated versions of the images and will use them if they're newer.

So, with apologies if I'm using the wrong terminology, I'm trying to

"Link" the files, but what seems to be happening is that the final word
document seems to be embedding a complete copy of the PPT everytime I
reference it.

 

[Guest]

Steve, sage words indeed
One of your comments has peaked my interest..Let's say that we make the speaker notes "audience friendly" and have them as PPT speaker notes(Which we could run off video adapter/monitor 2 on the main machine). Is the implication that those notes can be dynamic? I've tried making them include hyperlinks, but that doesn't work and paste special/paste link doesn't seem to be available. Do you have another mechanism for doing it?
If there is an answer, it could be very elegant
BTW, I've rechecked what I'm cutting and pasting, it is the individual slide rather than the whole PP

Cheer

Chris

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve, sage words indeed.
One of your comments has peaked my interest..Let's say that we make the

speaker notes "audience friendly" and have them as PPT speaker notes(Which
we could run off video adapter/monitor 2 on the main machine). Is the
implication that those notes can be dynamic?

To some extent, yes. For example, it's simple enough to remove them from a
presentation with a little VBA.

I don't know whether linking to the notes pages would be practical, but I
expect you could get around that one way or another.

For example, you could have the notes text read: [FILE:yadayada.txt]
A macro could grab that, read yadayada.txt and substitute its contents for
the existing notes text.

Notes text won't give you as much flexibility in formatting as a Word file
would. That might or might not be a consideration.

BTW, I've rechecked what I'm cutting and pasting, it is the individual

slide rather than the whole PPT

OK ... Another thought in that dept: Shyam's got a macro that splits a PPT
up into individual PPTs, one per slide. You might try linking to these
instead of the Big Fella.