Find linked Excel path

[Guest]

I have inherited a powerpoint file with linked Excel charts.
I need to update the charts, though don't know where the linked Excel
workbook is or what it is called.

Is there any way of finding the path and name of the workbook in the
powerpoint doc?

Cheers

JM

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have inherited a powerpoint file with linked Excel charts.
I need to update the charts, though don't know where the linked Excel
workbook is or what it is called.

Is there any way of finding the path and name of the workbook in the
powerpoint doc?

As long as they're Excel charts and not MSGraph charts linked to Excel data, no
problem.

Open the presentation, choose Edit, Links from the main menu bar.
The link dialog will give you an idea where the links point.

Sometimes it's a bit hard to sort out what linked objects are where and
sometimes the full path gets chopped off to the point that it's not readable.
If you run into that, download the demo of FixLinks at
http://fixlinks.pptools.com

It will give you a report on where each of the linked files is and will help
you locate the objects on your slides so you can fix them.

 

[Guest]

hmm, maybe they are not linked excel sheets as Edit/Links is greyed out...
Could they be MSGraph charts? (though not sure what these are exactly).
If I dbl click on the chart in powerpoint, it opens up as an excel window
and is editable, but not locatable.

Thanks

JM

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

hmm, maybe they are not linked excel sheets as Edit/Links is greyed out...
Could they be MSGraph charts? (though not sure what these are exactly).

MSGraph is the app that supplies charts when you choose Insert, Chart or use one of
the Chart layouts within PPT itself. It's a subset of Excel's charting engine.

If I dbl click on the chart in powerpoint, it opens up as an excel window
and is editable, but not locatable.

If you're certain they open in Excel when double clicked, then they might be
*embedded* rather than linked Excel charts, in which case there's no link to worry
about. The whole works is contained in the PPT file.

To verify what you've got, right click the chart, then choose Chart Object, Edit
from the popup menu. What appears in the title bar of the app that opens the chart
for editing?

 

[Guest]

So if I do have MS Chart objects (I can edit them using Edit/Object in ppt)
rather than linked documents, how can I find the location of the original
excel workbook??

Thanks

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

So if I do have MS Chart objects (I can edit them using Edit/Object in ppt)

That's not exactly what I suggested. If you open them for editing in that exact way,
the title bar will tell you what application they've opened in. That tells you whether
they're MSGraph or some other type of objects. The simple fact that you can open them
doesn't tell you anything much.

rather than linked documents, how can I find the location of the original
excel workbook??

But if in fact they're MSGraph objects with data linked from the MSGraph data sheet to
an Excel worksheet, you can't get the original location of the data, unfortunately.