Word Q & A: Tables and Charts
Last time I posted here, a few questions came up. One was whether people could ask questions in the comments. Another question was about charts, and we thought we'd take a few moments to address that question now.
Tables and charts: Will they play together well?
Could you explain how charts work with tables in Word 2007?
I used to be able to highlight a table==>Insert a chart and viola, a chart of my data appeared. Now Excel opens and I need to either re-enter the data or copy and paste. Is there an easier solution? Is there a reason why the team decided to make another program open and one that does not automatically chart the data in my table I have already made?
Yes, there is a reason why the team decided to open another program. The charting features in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 are much more varied and powerful. You can choose the chart—or graph—that best meets your needs. And the chart is integrated with the Word 2007 color and theme features, so if you choose a different theme or color scheme for your document, the chart will change, too.
But the data doesn't appear automatically in Excel. And typing just isn't that much fun (especially if you have already typed the data into Word). As you note, copying and pasting might be the quickest solution. The trick is to select the data and copy it before you click the Chart command on the Insert tab. That way, when Excel opens, you can just press CTRL+V.
What if you have a lot of data? If your data is in a table, you can select it all at once by moving the pointer to the upper-left corner of the table and clicking the Move handle that appears.
Or you can click the Layout tab under Table Tools, click Select, and then click Select Table.
Now, there's one more little gotcha. If you are trying to replace a table with a chart, select the table and the following paragraph mark.
If you don't select the paragraph mark, Word places the chart into the top left cell of your table, with the rest of the table squeezed in around it. Not pretty.
After you've selected your data and copied it and pasted it into the Excel worksheet that opens, you can do some pretty cool stuff with it. You can change the chart type. You can switch the rows and columns or you can change the chart layout. You can even add more data (just click Edit Data).
All the updates show up in your Word document.
A quick table tip
Want to delete a table? Here's an easy way:
- Select the table by clicking the Move handle
- Press BACKSPACE.
If you press DELETE, Word deletes only the contents of the table.
You can see it to believe it
We've been adding more videos to show you how things work in Word. First, we showed you what was on the screen while we explained the steps.
Now, we have four new videos featuring Bob deLaubenfels, a writer for Office Help. See how it's done:
Demo: Add pictures to a Word 2007 document from a camera or scanner
Demo: Remove tracked changes from Word 2007 documents
Demo: Scenarios for using headers and footers in Word 2007
Demo: Use Word Viewer to open or print Word documents
— Joannie Stangeland
