Inserting Data from Excel Worksheets

If you want to insert data from an Excel worksheet, you can, of course, copy it into a Word document with the Copy and Paste commands. (Select the desired cells in Excel, issue the Copy command, switch to the Word document, click at the desired location, and issue the Paste command.)

When you use this method, Word puts the Excel data in a table, which you can format and modify with the table and column techniques you learned in Chapter 8, "Correcting Documents and Using Columns and Tables." In Figure 12.1, the data in the table was pasted from an Excel worksheet.

Figure 12.1. Excel data that you insert with the Copy and Paste commands appears in a Word table.

This method has two drawbacks. First, the Excel formulas are converted to plain numbers, so they won't update if you revise any of the numbers in the table. Second, no link exists between the pasted data in the Word document and the original data in the Excel worksheet, so revising the data in Excel does not update it in Word.

One way to avoid these shortcomings is to link the pasted data in Word to the original data in the Excel worksheet. Then whenever you update the data in Excel, it is automatically updated in the Word document.

To insert linked data from Excel into your Word document, follow these steps:

1. In Excel, select the cells that you want to copy to Word and issue the Copy command.

2. Switch to the Word document, move the insertion point to the desired location, and choose Edit, Paste Special to display the Paste Special dialog box.

3. Mark the Paste Link option button, choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object in the list in the middle of the dialog box (see Figure 12.2), and click OK.

   Figure 12.2. Choose Paste Link in the Paste Special dialog box to link the pasted data with the original data in Excel.

   

4. Switch back to Excel, press Escape to turn off the marquee around the copied data, and then close the workbook.

The data is pasted into Word as an object, as shown in Figure 12.3 (note the selection handles around the data).

Figure 12.3. Your Excel data appears as an object in Word.

To edit the data in Excel, double-click the linked object in your Word document. In a moment, the associated worksheet opens in Excel with the linked cells selected (see Figure 12.4). When you revise the data in Excel, it is instantly updated in the Word document. (You can't edit the linked data in the Word document.)

Figure 12.4. Any changes you make to the data in Excel are immediately reflected in your Word document.

If the Word document isn't open when you revise the data in Excel, it's updated the next time you open the document.

If you move the Excel workbook that contains the source data, you have to tell Word where to find it. To do so, select the linked object in Word, and choose Edit, Links to display the Links dialog box. Click the Change Source button, navigate to and select the workbook in the Change Source dialog box, click the Open button, and then click OK.

Another option is to embed the Excel data in your Word document. When you use this technique, double-clicking the embedded object displays the Excel interface menus , toolbars , and so onwithin the Word window, so you can use Excel controls to revise the data without ever leaving Word. When you embed data, the Excel data "lives" in the Word document and is not linked to original data in Excel. When you edit the data in the Word document, it does not get updated in the original Excel worksheet, and vice versa.

To embed Excel data in a Word document, follow these steps:

1. In Excel, select the cells that you want to copy to Word and issue the Copy command.

2. Switch to the Word document, move the insertion point to the desired location, and choose Edit, Paste Special to display the Paste Special dialog box.

3. Mark the Paste option button, choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object in the list in the middle of the dialog box (see Figure 12.5), and click OK.

   Figure 12.5. Choose Paste in the Paste Special dialog box to embed the pasted data in the Word document.

   

4. Switch back to Excel and press Escape to turn off the marquee around the copied data, and then close the workbook.

Just as when you link the data, embedded data is pasted into Word as an object. However, Word responds differently when you double-click an embedded object. Instead of displaying the source data in Excel, it displays the Excel interface in the Word window, as shown in Figure 12.6.

Figure 12.6. You can use Excel controls to edit the embedded data in your Word document.

You can also start an embedded Excel worksheet from scratch in your Word document instead of beginning with data that you pasted from an existing Excel worksheet. To do so, click the Insert Microsoft Excel Worksheet toolbar button in the Standard toolbar, drag across the number of cells that you want to start out with in the drop-down grid, and release the mouse button.