Chart layout gets messed up when copied from Excel to Word

**AleXSR700** · 02-23-2021, 12:26 PM

Hello everyone,

I have created lots of graphs in Excel which I would like to insert into a Word file as linked chart.

I inserted as linked chart keeping the original formatting, but the format gets completely messed up. Does anybody know why and how to fix this?

Thank you very much

**6StringJazzer** · 02-23-2021, 12:35 PM

It looks like the top version is wider--is that the Excel version? Is the Excel chart embedded on a Worksheet, or is it a Chart sheet?

Maybe you just need to make the Word version wider. Is the width in Word constrained by your page size, or there room to widen it?

**AleXSR700** · 02-24-2021, 03:27 AM

Hello,

yes, the top one is the Excel version. In the Excel the charts are on individual sheets (so page layout is DIN A4). In Word, since the Word document is portrait, the size needs to be adjusted to match the target layout. But when inserting, Word automatically adjusts the size. Why does it not do this proportionally to keep the layout? That makes no sense to me. That would mean that I have to adjust the page size of each chart to match the target size (which is not a standard layout and will vary for every chart (some are full width, some are two side by side, some pages then landscape etc.).

Surely there must be smart way to copy a linked chart without having to reformat every single one.

Additional question: How do I get the chart in Word to update completely? If I change the axis ticks on the source Excel, the one in Word does not update this. It seems it only updates the values, but that means that new values will not be shown since the axis in Word is limited (x-axis shows dates and new samples will have future dates, so they will not be displayed until the axis is updated...which I want do in the source Excel and not Word, otherwise it will be twice the amount of work).

EDIT: And I also cannot fix the issue by resizing the chart in Word. If I resize it to the same size as the source and then e.g. select to resize proportionally to 50 %, Word does not resize the text accordingly and everything is messed up again.
Additionally, when I resize, the data point size stays the same. So when side by side the data points look much larger than in a full width chart.

Is Word this limited? It works with Origin charts. It works with images (obviously). Why does Word not apply the same smartness to Excel charts?

**6StringJazzer** · 02-24-2021, 09:05 AM

I don't think it's a Word limit so much as how Excel and Word talk. I am thinking this is more related to how Excel puts charts on the clipboard.

I need to try a few examples to dig into this. It would help if you could provide your Excel file, or an Excel file with one or two sample charts that are giving you trouble.

**AleXSR700** · 02-24-2021, 09:30 AM

I will try to make a test file (currently work related data included).

On my system it applies to all charts.

So should also happen when you create a chart with page layout e.g. letter landscape and then paste with source formatting and linked to data to a simple DIN A4 word file.

**6StringJazzer** · 02-24-2021, 12:21 PM

I am not having the same problem.

Excel chart from chart sheet:
chart Excel.jpg

Pasted into Word (using U.S. Letter format in portrait orientation):
chart Word.jpg

**AleXSR700** · 02-25-2021, 03:13 AM

Thank you 6StringJazzer.

Would you please add axis titles also? If that still works, then I really have to find the source of the problem here.

Can you resize the chart in Word and it automatically adjusts the font size to ensure that everything still fits? When I resize, the font size stays the same and hence does not work anymore.
Font size in Excel is 16.

Did you use target formatting or source formatting when pasting?

EDIT:
I attached a quick test Excel and Word file. As you can see, the sizes are kept, so when resizing, the chart becomes useless. In this tst file, for some reason, at least the axis titles stay where they are. But will ignore that for now since the pasted chart remains useless if I cannot resize it without losing the information.