Take Your Data Traveling: Use Charts and Diagrams in Multiple Programs

Create a table in Word where the chart will be placed.

When you use a table to organize your page, you can often fit more on the page without making it look crowded. You can also format a complex page much more easily than you might imagine. In the case of this exercise, by using a table we can also use the dimensions of the table cell to easily calculate the exact size needed for the Excel chart.

Tables are natural organizers, so they provide compartments for each of your important pieces of information. For example, take a look at the example page shown here:

A sample Word document page with non-printing table guidelines visible

I used a four-row, three-column table to quickly organize this complex page. Notice that the above image shows the non-printing table gridlines in order to more easily demonstrate how the table is used.

As you see here, each graphic—that is, the Excel chart on the right side of the table and the PowerPoint Venn diagram in the bottom-left cell of the table—gets its own table cell. When you use a table cell as a placeholder for a graphic, you can use the dimensions of that table cell to easily calculate the exact size you will need for the graphic, as demonstrated in the steps that follow. This is particularly easy when the graphic is an Excel chart, because you can use simple formulas to precisely calculate the size of the chart before you even copy it.

For help with several steps throughout this topic, including how to use a table as a page layout and how to place graphics in Word tables, take the free Office Online training course Tables II.

Note: If you have downloaded the sample file available with this article, you can open the sample Word document on the Word Document Sample worksheet.

Size a cell in the Word table to match the size you want your Excel chart to be.

You can adjust column width and row height by just dragging the edges of the cells, or you can adjust them precisely through the Table Properties dialog box, available on the Table menu. For help with table formatting basics, see the Office Online Training course Tables I.

Record the dimensions of the Word table cell that you sized for your Excel chart.

To find cell dimensions, click in the placeholder cell. Then, on the Table menu, click Table Properties. Take note of the height indicated on the Row tab of the Table Properties dialog box and the width indicated on the Column tab of the dialog box, and then click OK.

If you are using the sample Word document, the height of the table cell where the Excel chart will go is 2 inches (50.8 mm) and the width of that cell is 4.44 inches (112.8 mm).

Tip If no row height is indicated in the Table Properties dialog box, then row height has not been set. Set row height by specifying it in this dialog box or dragging the bottom edge of the row.

Calculate the margins for the Excel chart sheet.

In Excel, you can now use the height and width information from your Word table cell to resize your chart. All this requires is two simple formulas to determine what the margins of the chart sheet need to be.

When you start with your chart on its own sheet, as suggested at the beginning of these instructions, you can use the sheet margins to resize the chart. The chart sheet has margins just like the page margins of a Word document. When you change those margins, the chart will automatically resize.

Use the following formulas to determine the proper sheet margins.

Note If you are using a default chart sheet, the height and width of the sheet is the same as the height and width of a default landscape page. If your standard paper size is letter (as it is in the sample download file), the height of the chart sheet is 8.5 inches (215.9 mm) and the width is 11 inches (279.4 mm).

Top and bottom chart sheet margins

=(height of chart sheet - height of table cell) / 2

Left and right chart sheet margins

=(width of chart sheet - width of table cell) / 2

Enter the results of the formulas as the margins of the chart sheet.

Note: If you are using the sample data, switch to the sheet named Chart to try the resizing for yourself, or switch to the sheet named Resized chart for Word to see this step completed.

To enter the new chart sheet margins, on the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click Margins. Replace the current sheet margins with the results of your formulas as shown here, and then click OK.

If you are using the sample data and sample Word document, the results of your formulas should be to set the top and bottom sheet margins to 3.25 inches (8.3 cm) and the left and right sheet margins to 3.28 inches (8.3 cm).

Important: Once you resize the chart, do not be concerned if it looks distorted. It just needs a bit of reformatting to accommodate the size change. Reducing the font size will likely do most of the work you need. To quickly resize the font for the entire chart at once, select the Chart Area before changing the font.

Copy the resized chart and place it in your Word document.

Once you are happy with your resized chart, copy the chart and paste it into Word as a picture. It should fit perfectly within the table cell you for which you sized it.

To do this, select the Chart Area and press CTRL+C to copy the chart. Then, in Word, click in the table cell where you want to place the chart. On the Edit menu, click Paste Special, select Picture (Enhanced Metafile) and click OK.

Note: By default, the picture will be placed in the table cell using the In line with text picture layout, which enables it to sit snugly in the cell without extra work. To ensure that the picture uses this layout, double-click the picture to open the Format Picture dialog box. On the Layout tab of that dialog box, confirm that In line with text is selected, and then click OK.