How to Add an Excel Chart to a PowerPoint Presentation

Charts add a little extra punch to your PowerPoint presentation instead of listing bullet points of data. Conveniently, charts created in Excel can be copied and pasted into your PowerPoint presentations. As an added bonus, update charts in your PowerPoint presentation when changes are made to the original Excel data.

Copy Your Chart From Excel

Any chart that you create in Excel can be copied and pasted into any Microsoft Office app.

1. Open the Excel file that contains the chart you want to copy and select the chart.

2. Select Home > Copy.

   There are other ways to copy the chart. Right-click on the chart and select Copy. Or, use the Ctrl+C shortcut.

3. Close Excel.

Choose How to Paste Your Chart

The chart you copied in Excel is stored on the Clipboard. Now it's time to paste it into a PowerPoint slide.

1. Open PowerPoint and navigate to the slide where you wish to paste the Excel chart.

2. Select Home and select the Paste down arrow. Or, right-click the slide. The different options for pasting a chart display.

3. Choose Use Destination Theme & Embed Workbook to paste your chart into PowerPoint with the ability to edit it in PowerPoint and match your presentation's color scheme.

4. Choose Keep Source Formatting & Embed Workbook to be able to edit it in PowerPoint and keep the original color scheme from Excel.

5. Choose Use Destination Theme & Link Data to be able to edit it by making changes to your original data in Excel. The chart will match your PowerPoint presentation's color scheme.

6. Choose Keep Source Formatting & Link Data to edit it by making changes to your original data in Excel. The chart will keep the original color scheme from Excel.

7. Choose Picture to paste a picture of your chart into PowerPoint. The picture cannot be edited and is not tied to any data.

Update Excel Charts in PowerPoint

If you chose to Link Data when pasting your Excel chart into PowerPoint, changes made to the original spreadsheet file will update the chart in PowerPoint.

To manually update chart data:

1. Select the chart in PowerPoint.

2. Select Chart Tools Design.

3. Select Refresh Data.

Microsoft Office Update Prompt

Each time you open a PowerPoint presentation that is linked to another Microsoft Office app, such as Excel or Word, you're prompted to update the links in the presentation file. If you trust the source of the presentation, choose Update Links. All links to other documents are updated with any new changes.