PowerPoint doesn't update linked charts

Question

I've found that my PowerPoint does not update linked charts properly. Here's the steps I'm using.

1. Copy a chart from a saved Excel file.
2. Paste the chart into PowerPoint slide, choose "Keep Source Formatting & Link Data"
3. Update the data in Excel and observe that the PowerPoint slide does not update as expected.
4. In PowerPoint, click File > Info > Edit links to Files.  Turn on the Automatically Update checkbox and try again. Still doesn't work.

Someone suggested running the VBA command ActivePresentation.UpdateLinks.  It executes the command but the charts do not update.

Answer 1

Hi CmdrKeene,

I too noticed the same thing, once PowerPoint is opened it won’t update the chart but if we right-click on the chart in PowerPoint and select Edit Data, the chart will start updating and it will continue updating if we make any changes in the linked chart in Excel.

Thanks,

Neha

Answer 2

It should be basically fully automatic, but I've not figured out why it's not yet.  If you open File ("Backstage" I think they still call it?) and go to Info on the left, there's an "Edit links to Files" option at the bottom right.  Under there you can set the data source for each chart to update automatically (a checkbox), but if you save and open the file again the checkbox becomes cleared.

A bunch of online examples seem to show that the user would see a security dialog when opening a PowerPoint file that has links, and they'd get asked if they wish to update/enable those links.  I am familiar with Excel doing this (usually in the yellow info tooltip bar).

When I open my PowerPoint file I'm not seeing such a prompt.  So I'm going to investigate my Trust Center/Security options to see if something in those is preventing automatic update of links.

The template I'm creating for my users is going to have perhaps a dozen linked items from a Excel file. Basically I'm giving my team a pair of files (Excel+PowerPoint). Excel grabs data and pivots/produces charts for them, and the PowerPoint is our corporate branding and that data already arranged as it needs to be for clients to see. My goal is the user can update Excel, then open PowerPoint and have updated graphics without any manual copy/pasting or reformatting/resizing objects. It'll just always just get updated info from Excel.

Right now it seems like we're almost there, but I'd hate to ask my users to open the PowerPoint file and then "be sure to right-click & edit on every item in this slide deck or it won't be showing the right info".   It's just not a great solution.

I wouldn't mind even storing a simple macro inside the file.  I tried running the VBA command ActivePresentation.UpdateLinks but it didn't actually update the charts, even if the Excel file was open at the same time.

If my investigating the Trust Center options doesn't turn out, maybe I'll write a VBA subroutine that actually finds and iterates over every chart object it can find in the presentation, and individually call the update/edit verb on each one. I've never used VBA in PowerPoint but I imagine my experience in Excel's programming could translate over.

Answer 3

>> I was wondering if where I stored the two files is making a difference.  I'm going to explore pairs of files (Excel+PowerPoint) stored locally, OneDrive Business, and SharePoint doc library.

I was just going to ask you about that.  I've heard other reports that links to SharePoint don't work in PPT/Excel.  And since OneDrive sits on a SharePoint foundation, it wouldn't surprise me if links there have problems as well.

If the same file set stored locally works but not when it's stored on SharePoint/OneDrive, I think you'll have found the problem.

Please do let us know the results

Answer 4

At least my initial testing doesn't appear to show it's due to SharePoint, but my testing strategy wasn't the cleanest so I'm going to try it again in a more careful and deliberate way.  I had just done some "save as" to save a copy to another location and then test without even actually closing and re-opening the file or program.

I'm going basically test it more slowly and carefully so I can take identical steps with fresh app launches in each scenario and try:

Local folder only (C:\TEMP)

OneDrive (C:\Users\Sxxne\OneDrive)

365 e3 Tenant's OneDrive Business (*C:\Users* Sxxne\OneDrive - Cxxne)

SharePoint doc library synced locally (*C:\Users* *Sxxne* *Cxxne* *CxxneTeam Site - Documents*)

(This isn't the 365 e3 tenant where I had the issue, but it's a spare one I own for testing on the same tier. I can test in the original tenant when I'm back at my day job on Monday).

I'll certainly post back what I find. Thanks for your interest and replies.  My team has adopted PowerBI so it's possible the target audience (my teammates) can use it to get data they need. But at least right now I feel like this "Excel + PowerPoint" solution is the fastest way they can jump to a near-ready-to-share-with-the-client without exporting any CSV data and formatting it themselves each time.

Answer 5

I think you'll need to go through the whole exercise of creating each PPTX+XLSX set on each platform because of the way PPT creates links; if you copy a desktop set of files to OneDrive/Sharepoint, the links will still be pointing back to your desktop.