Business Tools Blog

I LOVE charts.  If done right, they make it easy to quickly understand lots of data.

Wikipedia says:

A picture is worth a thousand words is a proverb that refers to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. It also aptly characterizes the goals of visualization where large amounts of data must be absorbed quickly.

We find this to be true.  Our financial reviews include a standard set of graphs for each business unit.  This makes it easy to understand financial performance, and changes in financial performance from one month to the next.

Using the right tool for the job is important.  Financial models are generally built in Excel and financial presentations are generally given in PowerPoint.  Fortunately, Microsoft makes it easy to link excel based charts to PowerPoint.  When the data in the chart changes, your PowerPoint updates automatically. 

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Select your Excel chart (click an outside corner)
2. Right click to bring up the menu
3. Select copy

4. Go to your PowerPoint presentation
5. Select Edit
6. Select Paste Special

7. Select Paste Link
8. Click, OK

The last steps are necessary if you think neatness counts …

1. Right Click on the graph
2. Select Update link (This will resize the graph, so the next time you hit update link it won’t change the graph’s size)

Next, make the graph fit the page.

Method 1 -

Grab a corner and drag the corner at a 45 degree angle so that the length/width ratio grow proportionally.

Method 2:

Use this method if you want all of your graphs to be the same size and position throughout your presentation.

1. Right click on the chart
2. Click format object

3. Change the width to 9.5.
Hint: the length shouldn’t be more than 6 … so adjust as necessary

4. Then, assuming 9.5 worked for the width, make the Horizontal position 0.25″ and the Vertical position 1.45″
5. Click OK

Now your presentation looks like this:

Later, if you change the graph, it will automatically update in the presentation. Just right click, then update link like we did in step 2. The size and position will stay formatted.

Hint: Make sure the name of the excel file and worksheet don’t change.  This will break the link. 

You can check and update your links by:

Select Edit, Links

Here you can update, open source, change source or break the link.

Happy graphing!