Ever need to insert an Excel worksheet into a Word document and have them linked so that when you update the main Excel worksheet, it automatically updates the values in the Word document also?
Well, there are actually a couple of ways to insert an Excel spreadsheet into Word: linking, embedding and creating a new one. Whether you embed or link, the inserted Excel spreadsheet will not automatically get updated unless you specifically create the link between the two files.
In Word, go to the File menu > Options > Save. From there, you’ll adjust the settings the same way we did in the Mac version. Finally, remember that you can save your document at any time by either pressing Command+S on a Mac or Ctrl+S on Windows. You can also save any time by clicking on the disk icon at the top of your window.
Once linked, however, then the data in the embedded or linked spreadsheet will update whenever changes are detected in the originating Excel spreadsheet.
In addition to inserting an existing Excel spreadsheet, you can also insert a new Excel object into Word, which basically runs Excel inside of Word itself.
In this article, I will show you how to do it using all three methods and explain what you need to do in order to create the link.
Copy Paste Method
Let’s start off with the first method, which is basically just copying and pasting from Excel into Word. Note that when using this method, you have the option to include only a part of the Excel spreadsheet in the Word document. In the second method, inserting an object, the entire spreadsheet will be placed into the Word file.
Step 1: Select the area in your Excel spreadsheet that you want to include in Word and then press Ctrl + C to copy the contents.
Step 2: Now go to your Word document and press Ctrl + V to paste the contents into the Word file. In order to link, you have to click on the Paste Options button at the bottom right and choose either Match Destination Table Style and Link to Excel or Keep Source Formatting and Link to Excel.
In newer versions of Word, you’ll see several icons. You can hover over them and you’ll find the same two options as mentioned above.
Step 3: That’s it, now your table will be linked to the original Excel file. Whenever you update the Excel file and reopen Word, Word will ask you if you want to update the doc with the new data from the linked files.
Step 4: Click Yes and your table will reflect the new values. If you have both files open at the same time, you’ll see the changes live.
There is obviously some pretty complicated mechanism that makes all of this work, but thankfully you don’t have to worry about it. It just works! Note that if you just copy and paste and don’t choose one of the linking options, you’ll just have a stand-alone Excel object inserted that won’t be updated when changes are made in the original Excel file.
Also, using this method, you can’t edit the Excel data in Word and have it reflect back to the Excel spreadsheet. It only works one way. If you make changes to the data in Word and save the file, you will get the same message above asking if you want to update the file from the linked files when you go to open the file again.
If you click Yes, it will simply reload the latest values from the Excel spreadsheet and overwrite whatever values you may have changed. If you want to edit the original Excel spreadsheet, you can do it from Word by right-clicking on the data, clicking on Linked Worksheet Object and then clicking on Edit Link.
This is useful if someone else created this Word document and you don’t know the location of the original Excel file.
Insert Object Method
The second way to link an Excel spreadsheet to Word is by using the Insert menu.
Step 1: In Word, click on the Insert tab, click on the Object dropdown and then choose Object.
Step 2: Click on the Create from File tab and click on the Browse button to choose your file.
Step 3: Once you choose the file, you will see two check boxes at the right side. If you want to link the Excel spreadsheet, you need to check Link to file. If you want to insert the spreadsheet so that it is not linked to the original file, then don’t check the box.
As mentioned previously, using the Insert Object method will dump the entire contents of the Excel spreadsheet into Word rather than just a portion.
Note that if you were to double-click on the Excel object (if linked), then it will simply open up the original Excel file in Excel itself.
Insert Table Method
Lastly, you can insert a fully editable Excel spreadsheet into Word by going to the Insert tab, clicking on Table and then clicking on Excel Spreadsheet at the bottom.
This method is only useful if you want to create a new Excel spreadsheet from scratch and you plan on making changes to the spreadsheet from within Word itself. What’s cool about this method, though, is that it’ll insert a floating spreadsheet and load the entire Excel menu too inside Word, so you can insert formulas, etc just as if you were in Excel itself.
You can add sheets, create filters, format cells and do everything just like the normal Excel. It’s a quick and easy way to insert some data into a Word document that you can format properly using Excel rather than relying on Word tables, which are really hard to make look nice.
So those are all the different ways you can get an Excel spreadsheet into Word and have them linked or not linked, depending on your needs. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!
In this article, we focus on providing you with 2 quick ways to split a Word document into multiple ones.
There are times we will have a rather long document, requiring a team work. Then it’s pretty necessary to split it into several shorter ones to speed up workflow. Instead of doing it in old-school way, like cutting and pasting, we have more fast methods to this tedious task. Just read on to see more.
Method 1: Operate in “Outline View”
First and foremost, take necessary backup for your files in case any misconduct may be done to it during the process.
Secondly, see if the part of text to be split has been placed under level heading, such as Heading 2, 3, 4, etc. If it is, you can move directly to the third step. However, if not yet, you should enter some mark words both at the start and end of the text, and set these words in “Heading 1”. If we put these words in, say, “Heading 3”, then when the text contains a higher level heading style like “Heading 2”, you won’t be able to get the text out. Here is our example:
Thirdly, click “View” tab.
Then click “Outline” in “Document Views”.
Now under “Outlining” tab, go to “Outline Tools” group, and choose the level of your mark words on the drop-list of “Show level”. Here, we shall choose “Level 1” for we just set them in “Heading 1”. And all texts in level 1 will be displayed.
Next, click “Show Document” in “Master Document” group. And you will notice both “Create” and “Insert” option are now available.
Then click the plus sign ahead of the first mark word so as to select this part of text.
Lastly, click “Create” to start splitting the document.
You can repeat step 7 and 8 to finish separating the rest of the document. And remember to save the file when you are done. Then go to the location of the original file, and you will find all the new documents. Below is what you may achieve:
Method 2: Use VBA Codes
If you prefer the copy and paste method, you probably can let Word macro do the job for you. And better, you can add the macro to “Quick Access Toolbar”, so you can easily use it repeatedly. For the steps to do that, please refer to our previous article: How to Quickly Invoke another Application from MS Word
To begin with, press “Alt+ F8” to open the VBA editor.
On the right editing area, paste the following codes:
Then save the codes and add macro to “Quick Access Toolbar”.
Next, select a text and click the macro button. You will get a new document.
Notes:
Among the codes, the “C:UsersTestDesktop” refers to the path where the new documents will be stored. You can change it as you like.
The codes “Set objFileName = objNewDoc.Range(Start:=0, End:=10)” means we will have the first 10 characters of the selected text as the name of new file. Likely, you can also change this part accordingly.
By the way, you may also need to merge or combine these revised documents into one. Then you can take ways offered in the following 2 articles:
Inevitable Disaster
Living in a hyper-connected world, everything is concerned with data nowadays. As we daily use Word to deal with a large amount of information, everyone should bear the file damage in mind, for no one can tell when the next data disaster will happen. As inevitable as it is, we must prepare ourselves by getting an efficient tool to repair corrupt Word data beforehand.
Author Introduction:
Vera Chen is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including Excel data problem repair tool and pdf repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com