How to Link Powerpoint to Excel for Dynamic Data Updates

We often need to show live data or real-time scores in PowerPoint presentations. This type of data changes frequently. Therefore, it is inefficient to change Excel data manually and then make a PowerPoint slide each time there is a change in the data. In this article, I will show you three handy methods to link Powerpoint to Excel files for dynamic data updates.

How to Link Powerpoint to Excel for Dynamic Data Updates: 3 Easy Methods

In this article, we will learn 3 quick ways to link an Excel Table or chart to PowerPoint to update data dynamically. For this purpose, we will use the following dataset.

1. Use Automatic Update Option in Powerpoint

This method will demonstrate how you can use the Edit links to Files feature for automatic data updates.

Steps:

• Firstly, Hold the left mouse key and drag it to highlight your Table in Excel.
• Then right-click the mouse key and select Copy.

• Open your MS PowerPoint. On the left top corner, click on the down arrow under the Paste icon.
• Now we will select a special type of paste option. To do that,  select Paste Special. A pop-up box will open.

• Click on the Paste Link in the pop-up and choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object option.
• Then click OK.

• Now we have to automate the whole operation. For that, Click on File on the top left corner of your PowerPoint.

• Then select the Info option.

• Click on the Edit Links to Files. A pop-up will open.

• In the pop-up, choose the link to your Excel Table.
• Then check the Automatic Update option.
• You can also click on the Update now option to update the data manually.

• In the following Figure, we can see that the Quantity of Ice cream was 840 initially.

• We changed the value to 1000 in Excel and the value is automatically updated in PowerPoint. So we can see that our method is working perfectly and now we are able to link PowerPoint to Excel for dynamic data updates.

Read More: How to Link Excel Sheets to PowerPoint

2. Apply Paste Special Link Feature to Link for Dynamic Data Updates

In this method, we will learn the quickest and easiest way of linking Powerpoint to Excel to update data automatically.

Steps:

•  At first, Copy the Table from Excel.

• Now open PowerPoint.
• Click on the down arrow under the Paste option in PowerPoint‘s top left corner.
• After that, choose Paste Special to open a pop-up box.

• Click on the Paste link and then select Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object.
• Now press Ok to complete copying the table.

• The copied Table will appear in PowerPoint.
• Save the file and close Powerpoint.

• To link the table with Excel, Change any data in the Excel file and reopen PowerPoint.
• Now, a pop-up box will appear.
• Now click on Update Links. It will update any change made in the Excel file.

Read More: [Fixed!] Problems with Embedded Excel Files in PowerPoint

3. Use Regular Paste Option to Link PowerPoint to Excel

In this method, I will show you how you can keep the original file format and the default file format of PowerPoint.

Steps:

• First of all, create a Chart in Excel and Copy it.

• Next, open PowerPoint and click on the down arrow under Paste at the top left corner.
• Then, Select Use Destination Theme from Paste Options.

• It will change the Format to Default PowerPoint Format.

• You can also choose the Keep Source Formatting.

• This will keep the Format of the Excel file.

• Now any data alteration in Excel will automatically update the data in Powerpoint.
• To see that it works, go to Excel and change any data.
• Here, we changed the value for Quantity of Ice cream from 980 to 1220 in Excel.

• The Excel file is linked to PowerPoint. Therefore, this change automatically updated the Chart data in PowerPoint.

• If the Chart data does not get updated, click on the Chart Design tab and press Refresh Data.

Read More: How to Embed an Excel File in PowerPoint

Download Practice Workbook

Download this practice workbook for practice while you are reading this article.

Concluding Remarks

Thanks for making it this far. I hope you find this article useful. You can now link Excel to PowerPoint for dynamic data updates. Please let us know if you have any further queries and feel free to give us any recommendations in the comment section below.

Related Articles

• How to Link Excel Data to PowerPoint Chart
• [Solved] Embedded Excel in PowerPoint Not Showing All Data
• How to Open Existing PowerPoint File from Excel VBA

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