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Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances
by Echo Swinford
See Also: The Echo Swinford Interview
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 This book extract from Fixing
PowerPoint Annoyances by Echo Swinford is an Indezine exclusive with
permission from O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Echo Swinford is a Microsoft MVP and is a well
known PowerPoint authority. When she's not working
on new media, she is answering almost all the questions
on the PowerPoint newsgroup. If she can't find you
an answer to something PowerPoint related, then that
answer probably doesn't exist.
The excerpts chosen to be published on Indezine discuss
Excel related issues in PowerPoint.
I wish to thank Betsy Waliszewski , Regina Wilkinson and Craig
Palmer for facilitating the permission
to extract.
ISBN: 0-596-10004-3 |
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Excel Data Cut Off
Colored Text Turns Black
Get Rid of Gridlines
Extract Data from an Embedded Excel Chart
Continued on Page 2...
Excel Data Cut Off
The Annoyance: I pasted cells from an Excel
spreadsheet into my presentation,
but a bunch of rows got cut off. How can I get the whole thing
onto
my slide?
The Fix: The easiest way to fix this is to upgrade
to PowerPoint 2002 or 2003,
which fix the limitation PowerPoint and Excel seem to have when
exchanging
information on the clipboard.
There is a limit to the size of the PowerPoint 97 and 2000 clipboard—about
33x33 cm. Anything outside that area may be cut off. If you can,
reformat
your data to make it fit within this 33×33 cm area (for
example, decrease
the font size or the width of your columns). On a default spreadsheet,
this
would be about 72 rows long by 17 columns wide.
Depending on your operating system, you may also
be able to copy more
data if you change your display setting from, say, 800×600
to 1024×768 or
1280×1024. Right-click your desktop, choose Properties,
click the Settings
tab, and move the slider in the Screen resolution area (see Figure
4-11).
The only other solution is to paste pieces of your spreadsheet
onto your slide
and then realign the data once you get everything in PowerPoint.
Figure 4-11. Changing your display resolution may let you
paste more data from Excel onto your slide.
Back
Colored Text Turns Black
The Annoyance: I imported my spreadsheet okay, but the
colored text turned
black. It’s really bizarre.
The Fix: Make sure your default
printer is a color printer. Yeah, it’s weird, but
that really is the fix!
To set your default printer, click Start | Control Panel | Printers
and Faxes.
Right-click the color printer in the list and choose “Set
as Default Printer” (see Figure 4-12).
Figure 4-12. Make your default printer
a color printer to force your Excel text to
remain colored when you paste it into
PowerPoint.
You don’t actually need a color printer connected to your
computer. You
can still install the printer drivers for a color printer and set
it as the default
while you work on the presentation. To install color printer drivers,
click
Start | Control Panel | Printers and Faxes. In the Printers and
Faxes dialog
box, select File | Add Printer. Follow the prompts to install a
local printer to
LPT1, and choose something like HP DeskJet 722C from the list.
Back
Get Rid of Gridlines
The Annoyance: I pasted in a bunch of Excel data,
but I can’t
get the gridlines
to go away. Help!
The Fix: You have to remove the
gridlines in Excel before you paste the data
into PowerPoint. Open the file in Excel, choose Tools | Options,
click the
View tab, and uncheck the Gridlines box in the Window options
area (see
Figure 4-13).
Figure 4-13. To make gridlines disappear, uncheck
the Gridlines box before you paste your data into
PowerPoint.
Back
Extract Data from an Embedded Excel Chart
The Annoyance: Some doofus embedded an Excel
chart into the presentation, but we really only want it linked
so the market research people can update the data without messing
up our PowerPoint file. Is there a way to get this information
out of PowerPoint, or do we have to start over and create a new
workbook in Excel for the research folks?
The Fix: Just right-click the chart and choose
Chart Object | Open. Then select File | Save Copy As. This saves
a copy of the chart and data in an Excel workbook you can let your
market research people work on. Delete the original chart in the
PowerPoint file and create a link to the chart in the new Excel
workbook: copy the chart in Excel, select Edit | Paste Special
in PowerPoint, and choose the “Paste link” option to
link the chart to the presentation. As long as you don’t
break the link to the Excel file by moving
it to a different folder, the data will update each time you open the
PowerPoint file. To change this behavior, select Edit | Links and choose the
desired options.
Back
Continued on Page
2...
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