Linking powerpoint drawings into a Word document (or vice versa): Word hangs

[Michael Moser]

Hi all,
the deliverables for our current software project include a design
document as well as a presentation to deliver at the end of the
project (sounds familiar...?).

The presentation is more or less done, and now I am writing the
document. But of course I would like to spare me the work of having to
draw all kinds of sketches again in Word and so I would like to "hot
link" some of the drawings from the PPT presentation into the Word
document.

This seems to be more difficult than I had expected! While it is
possible to "Edit => Paste Special" => Paste Link" an entire slide,
this is of course not what I want, since that includes the slide's
header, footer, etc. which looks completely cheap and unprofessional.
I only want the drawing being pasted!

But when I try to paste the drawing only the "Paste Link" option is
grayed out and I can only insert a *copy* of the current picture into
the document. If I modify the picture on the slide later (which is
almost 100% likely to happen) then I would have to repeat this
process.

Funny enough - the inverse seems possible, a drawing created in Word
using "Insert => Object... => Office Drawing Object" can be hot-linked
into a PPT slide using Copy & Edit => Paste Special => "Insert Link".
If only I had known that before!

Because, as a work-around to this asymmetry I tried to move some
pictures over to Word and then hot-link them in the other direction.
But this causes all kind of weird effects. Some seem to be full-blown
bugs (e.g. for no apparent reason some arrow-tips are suddenly HUGE
while most others are perfectly fine. Elements that have filling
effects (patterns or transparency are filled with solid black, etc.),
others are probably due to the fact, that graphic elements and texts
obviously are not scaled alike, i.e. after pasting the text inside
boxes changes has a different size relative to its surrounding
elements, such that some texts suddenly don't fit their boxes or
circles any more, others are wrapped at stupid places, etc.

As workaround I tried to paste the stuff as Extended Meta File (.emf).
While this at first seemed to work perfect, as soon as one wants to
edit that picture, Word declares that to do so it has to convert that
picture into an Office Drawing Object and ask whether one wants to do
so. If clicking OK Word starts consuming 95+ percent CPU and hangs
there. I tried a couple of times, also with different drawings but
always with the same effect. Once I tried and left it running, to see
whether it maybe completes after some longish period time, but after
half an hour I gave up and killed it.

So, what other options are there?
* Is there some other way to hot-link a PowerPoint drawing into Word?
* If not: what options do I have to move or convert an existing ppt
drawing into Word, such that I can later also edit it there?

Michael

 

[Gilles Desjardins]

Only an opinion but did you try :File, Send to, Word? This will give you a
table layout that you can modify. Also, the slides once in Word, you can
double click them to modify each slide individually as needed.
HTH

 

[Michael Moser]

Alas, when I right click on a .ppt file, under Send... Word is not
among the listed options. Can one somehow add it to that list?

Michael

 

[Echo S]

You need to have the PPT file open. Then the command is under File/Send
to Word.

 

[Mark Tangard]

Hi Michael,

You *can* hotlink the slides, but unless the PPT is small, it's
can invite trouble. Also, as you've found, anything you've done
in the PPT that's remotely off the straight-and-narrow (like
fudging backgrounds) can come back to bite you.

That said, one FAIRLY safe way is one you might never expect to
work: In PPT, go to Slide Sorder view, select the slide, and do
a Copy. Then switch to Word and do a Paste Special as a PICTURE
(not as a PPT object). You'd think a picture would just freeze
the slide in the document, but if you then go & change the slide's
content in PPT you'll find it actually does change the picture.
Even formatting changes get carried over. And this method won't
give you the multi-megabyte bloat in the Word file that can
happen if you paste the slides in as PPT objects. To my mind
the only time pasting as a PPT object is safe and useful is with
small files whose slides you must, for some reason, edit often by
double-clicking then in Word. Even then, I'd want to be sure my
karma account was safely in the black before that double-click.

Another possibility, and one I've used a lot: Send the whole PPT
to Word, as Gilles describes. Choose "Notes next to slides" in
the intervening dialog. This produces a 3-column table in Word,
with the slides in the middle column. I typically toss the 1st
and 3rd columns, then break the table up to intersperse text.
However, this approach DOES sometimes gag on the slides with
fudged backgrounds, etc. To get them to behave, I send each of
them individually to Word, that is, make a copy of the whole PPT,
delete all the other slides, and send THAT file to Word). For
some reason this works.

You're likely to get clearer responses from the PowerPoint MVPs,
so please let anything they tell you override what I've said here.

--
Mark Tangard <[email protected]>, Microsoft Word MVP
Please reply ONLY to the newsgroup, not by private email.
Note well: MVPs do not work for Microsoft.
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed." --John Waters

 

[Michael Moser]

Hi Mark,
thanks for your response - I really appreciated someone reacting.
Alas, it's missing one important point:

I know, that "hot-linking" an ENTIRE SLIDE works (I even mentioned
that in my initial append), but that's not what I want or need, since
that includes the slide's large title as well as headers and footers
containing all kind of stuff (like our company logo...) as well. What
I want, is to just refer (and then hotlink from Word) to the "BODY" of
the slide or maybe even some PARTIAL content only (e.g. for slides,
where I have a figure in one column and some text in another). And
that - referring to an embedded picture (or other object) from
outside - seems to be not possible in PowerPoint. Strange enough, in
Word it is possible and whence one can hotlink from a slide to some
picture or table that sits "inside" a word document.

Since the other direction would work, I am - as you noted - thus
searching for a way to migrate my pictures to word, so I can reference
them "the other way round", i.e. from the .ppt file instead. I thus
tried your suggestion to send the slides to Word (which worked), but
when I then try to somehow "extract" the pictures and e.g. paste the
content into a Word picture Word falls on its back: either it enters a
busy loop (which seems to be the case with more complicated pictures)
or it completely messes up the content: some boxes are suddenly 10
times as broad as they should be, certain lines and connectors run
completely mad, some elements are completely black, or - very cute -
everything is nicely "piled up" on some corner or some other idiocy.
In short, the result is useless and it would probably quicker to
redraw the picture than to fix that mess... BTW: it's the same when
directly copying & pasting certain pictures from ppt to word, so there
seem to be some fundamental differences in the picture implementation
between the two, even though the drawing mode - at least from a user's
perspective - appears to be very much the same.

Michael

 

[Mark Tangard]

Michael,

Yes, I've definitely noticed that the 2 programs handle graphics
differently, and it's always been a bit weird when switching from
one to the other.

I don't think you can get what you're aiming for here, linking to
portions of a slide's content. The only corresponding example that
leaps to mind is linking Excel content to Word -- you can link the
content of a given Excel cell or cells to a Word doc. This implies
that what you can link perhaps must be the *basic element* of the
source application. In PPT that would the slide, so I'm guessing
that's why you can link a slide but not a phrase, bullet, graph,
etc. PowerPoint is also a younger product than Word, so it's not
surprising that you can send more stuff from the latter to the former
than vice versa.

Did you hear nothing from the PPT MVPs?

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Did you hear nothing from the PPT MVPs?

It seems not, at least not so far, but that might be because you're doing
such a good job of answering the question. ;-)

 

[Echo S]

Heh. As Steve said, you're doing a fine job, Mark!

My only suggestion would be the original one: Use a copy of the
presentation with the headers/footers removed and do a File/Send
to/Word. Then double-click in Word and edit the slides as needed. But
you've already covered that. <g>

One thing that helps a little with the bloats -- when you send to Word,
choose Paste Link. Then when all is in Word and changed as desired, use
Edit/Links and break the links.

(I've cursed PPT quite a few times m'self, sir.)

Oh, you know, you can save drawings from PPT as WMFs by dragging them to
the Clip Gallery. Just open the Clip Gallery, minimize it, select the
drawing on the slide, drag it over the Clip Gallery on the taskbar at
the bottom of your screen, then hold until Clip Gallery opens.

But that would cause the same "ungroup" thing in Word as pasting as an
EMF/WMF, so I don't know that that would be a great solution. Maybe,
though...

 

[Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP]

Aw piffle. If you PPTMVPs heard some of curses I shout while

manhandling PowerPoint (or perhaps it's the other way round),
it'd curl your hair.

So I take it there are no extra secrets to this, then? The
things I've said here -- all of which I learnt by stumbling
upon them -- are The Way?

If so, it's a little scary....

You were expecting help in help files or something? ;-)