How to Update Charts in PowerPoint from Excel Automatically

If you are working for a company or organization, presenting your business ideas and thoughts about various projects and their updates is very common to you. Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint are ubiquitous tools frequently used in these cases. You may have created charts from your data based on your work updates in an Excel sheet. If you want to present this, you have to just copy the chart into a PowerPoint file. But When your data updates with time, the chart in Excel updates automatically, but the chart in the PowerPoint file doesn’t. In this article, I will show you how to update charts from PowerPoint from Excel automatically.

Table of Contents hide

Download Practice Workbook

2 Effective Ways to Update Charts in PowerPoint from Excel Automatically

1. Update Charts in PowerPoint by Refreshing Data

2. Update Charts Automatically with “Edit Links to Files” Option

Things to Remember

Conclusion

Download Practice Workbook

You can download the practice book from the link below.

Updating Chart-01.xlsx

Updating Chart.pptx

2 Effective Ways to Update Charts in PowerPoint from Excel Automatically

Let’s say, we have a dataset describing the name of some Sellers of an organization, sales, and the profit they made over a certain period of time.

We have made a sales report by creating a chart using this dataset to show the person-wise sales and profit.

Now we want to copy that chart into a PowerPoint file and update the chart in the PowerPoint file automatically. In this section, you will find 2 effective ways to update charts in PowerPoint from Excel automatically. Have a quick look to demonstrate the ways with the proper illustration.

1. Update Charts in PowerPoint by Refreshing Data

Creating a chart in a PowerPoint file introduces a new tab named Chart Design in the PowerPoint file. Here, the Refreshing Data option will be available. Utilizing this option can update data.

⏩ Steps:

First of all, you need to transfer the chart into the PowerPoint file. Just right-click the chart in the Excel file and click Copy in the menu list to copy the chart.

Then, go to the PowerPoint file and right-click on the slide where you want to show the chart. Right-click on that slide and select Use Destination Theme & Link Data (L) from the paste options.

Hence, the copied chart from Excel will be pasted to the PowerPoint file. A new tab in the PowerPoint file named Chart Design will be available now.

Now let’s update the chart in the Excel file and see the changes in the ppt file. (In our dataset the Profit made by David was $2500 previously.)

Change random data (i.e. Profit of David=> $5000) in the table and the chart in the Excel file will update itself immediately.

When you perform this task for the first time, the chart in the PowerPoint file may update automatically by default, But later on, you need to perform some actions to update it.

Here, click the chart in the PowerPoint file> go t the Chart Design tab> click the Refresh Data option under the Data group.

Note: For some versions, you may need to close the Excel file for executing the change.

After refreshing the data, you will see that the chart in the ppt file has now updated itself automatically as per the change made in the Excel file.

Similar Readings

2. Update Charts Automatically with “Edit Links to Files” Option

Another way available for updating charts automatically is to utilize the Edit Links to Files option of PowerPoint.

⏩ Steps:

First, paste the chart in PowerPoint from Excel following these steps of Method 1.
After pasting the chart in ppt, click the File tab of the ppt file.

Then, a window like the image below will appear with a menu list. At the right-end corner of the Info menu, two options are available in the Related Documents section. Select the Edit Links to Files option from here.

After that, a dialog box named Links will appear on that window. Under the Links group, the Excel file will be available. Select the file> mark the Automatic Update option and click Update Now. Now your chart will update automatically.

After that, make a change in the chart data (i.e. Profit of David $4000) of the Excel file.

Here, your chart in the PowerPoint file will now update automatically.

This procedure is relatively faster than the first Method.

Things to Remember

The PowerPoint chart may update automatically for the first time without performing any actions, but from next time you have to perform either of the procedures for updating the chart.
For some versions, the Excel file may need to be closed for updating the chart in the ppt file.

Conclusion

So these are the two procedures to update charts in PowerPoint from Excel automatically. Hope the article helped you. If you have better methods, questions, or feedback regarding this article, please don’t forget to share them in the comment box. For more queries, kindly visit our website ExcelDemy.

Stay Connected.