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Copying a chart between Excel and Word

Anonymous
2016-10-12T20:06:51+00:00

I'm trying to copy a chart from Excel 2016 for Mac to Word 2016 for Mac. I want to paste it as a picture in Word so I choose Edit - Paste Special and the only option I get are: Microsoft Excel Chart Object, PDF, Picture (TIFF) and Microsoft Office Graphic Object.

In earlier versions of Word for Mac I could paste it as a PNG file. Why not now? It seems to be a problem with Excel because if I copy a graphic from another application such as Pages, in Word I'm given PNG as format.

The problem with pasting in TIFF format is the file sizes become enormous, sometimes 20 times bigger than necessary.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-10-20T11:12:37+00:00

    Something is definitely different between Office 2011 and 2016 for Mac. The man difference is the file sizes. When I copy pictures of graphs from Excel 2016 into Word 2016 the file sizes of the Word documents can be up to 20 times bigger than they used to be with Office 2011.

    The work-around I've found is to save the Word document in .docx format, then save it again in .doc format (which is significantly smaller) and then to save again in .docx format which is then smaller than the intermediate .doc format document.

    Here's an example. I pasted a picture of a graph from Excel 2011 to Word 2011 and then the very same picture from Excel 2016 to Word 2016.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-10-13T21:34:10+00:00

    Hi Richard,

    The file formats for saving and exporting images are JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, or BMP. May I ask what kind of file type is the chart that you are transferring to your Word? What I can suggest is convert the file into the one given above for you to be able to transfer it.

    Let us know how it goes.

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  2. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-10-15T14:20:43+00:00

    Richard is correct - here's a screen shot of the paste special dialog when pasting from Excel into Word:

    It's the same in 2016 as it was in 2011, except the file format (TIFF) was not specified in 2011 - it said simply Picture

    I think you're confusing two features- Right-click on a chart's selection border and choose a file format, then import the file into Word if you want to control the file format

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