Page 518 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

500 Excel 2013 Data Sharing Basics
Because very few people purchase Excel 2013 as a separate program outside the Microsoft Office 2013 suite, it should be no surprise that most of the
file sharing happens between Excel and one of the other major applications included in Microsoft Office (such as Word, PowerPoint, and Access).
However, before you rush off and start wildly throwing Excel 2013 worksheets into Word 2013 documents and Excel 2013 charts into PowerPoint 2013 presentations, you need to realize that Microsoft offers you a choice in the way that you exchange data between your various Office programs. You can either embed the worksheet or chart in the other program or set up a link between the Excel-generated object in the other program and Excel itself.
✦ Embedding means that the Excel object (whether it’s a worksheet or
a chart) actually becomes part of the Word document or PowerPoint presentation. Any changes that you then need to make to the work- sheet or chart must be made within the Word document or PowerPoint presentation. This presupposes, however, that you have Excel on the same device as Word or PowerPoint and that that device has sufficient memory to run them both.
✦ Linking means that the Excel object (worksheet or chart) is only referred to in the Word document or PowerPoint presentation. Any changes that you make to the worksheet or chart must be made in Excel itself and then updated when you open the Word document or PowerPoint presentation to which it is linked.
Use the embedding method when the Excel object (worksheet or chart) is not apt to change very often, if at all. Use the linking method when the Excel object (worksheet or chart) changes fairly often, when you always need the latest-and-greatest version of the object to appear in your Word document or PowerPoint presentation, or when you don’t want to make the Word or PowerPoint document any bigger by adding the Excel data to it.
Be aware that when you link an Excel worksheet or chart to another Office document and you want to show or print that document on a different device, you must copy both the Excel workbook with the linked worksheet/ chart and the Word or PowerPoint file to it. Also be aware that when you embed an Excel worksheet or a chart in another Office document and then want to edit it on another device, that device must have both Excel 2013 and the other Microsoft Office program (Word or PowerPoint 2013) installed on it.
Use the embedding or linking techniques only when you have a pretty good suspicion that the Excel stuff is far from final and that you want to be able to update the Excel data either manually (with embedding) or automatically (with linking). If your Excel stuff will remain unchanged, just use the old standby method of copying the Excel data to the Clipboard with the Copy command button on the Home tab (or pressing Ctrl+C) and then switching