find and replace graph objects or slides

Question

I am trying to figure out if there is a way to find and replace slides that are exact replicas.  I built a presentation that has a slide with a graph object in it and that slide is then repeated a multiple points in the presentation.  The challenge is that I must change data values in the chart relatively frequently and there are perhaps as many as 30 duplicate copies of the slide within the deck.  I have been changing one slide, copying it, and the manually searching for replicas, deleting the old and pasting the new images.  This is very time consuming as you might imagine.  I was wondering if there is an easier way.

Answer 1

The simplest approach to this I can think of would be to create the graph in Excel, save the workbook (important!), select the graph, copy it, then Paste Special, Link into PowerPoint wherever it's needed.

You'd only then have to update the data in your Excel file and save.  The next time you open the PPT, it would automatically update all the graphs.

If you open the presentation when the Excel source isn't available (for example, you send the PPT/PPTX to someone else and they open it), you'll see the most recently updated version of the graph, but as a picture.  The data wouldn't be available but the graph would be visible.

You could accomplish the same *sort* of thing with VBA, but it would probably require even more work to prep the file in the first place than doing it with linked graphs.

Answer 2

Thanks,  This should work.  It is a shame that I can't do it all in PowerPoint.  I really don't like having to relay on an external program because we sometime hand off the updating duties to other people and that means that I have to make sure we pass the other file as well.