Good morning, SF. I'm here asking for help again.

I've got an Excel workbook with three worksheets. Data on those worksheets will be updated periodically throughout the day by my crew leaders.

At the same time, I have a PowerPoint presentation on a "yuge" monitor over the work area. The data in the three worksheets is linked (Excel: highlight and Copy; PP: Paste, Paste Special, Paste Link, MS Excel Worksheet Object) to three separate slides, respectively. The PP slides are to be in presentation mode throughout the day, reflecting the Excel data [essentially] real-time.

At the moment, I'm unable to make this happen. I've linked the data to the slides, and the data on each slide will update while not in presentation mode. But after going into presentation mode, the updating stops. After using presentation mode, the links don't update anymore either, until I close and re-open the PP document.

This seems like an ideal application for Microsoft's linking abilities, and surely to goodness I'm not the only guy in the world who's wanted to use Excel and PowerPoint in this manner.

How can I fix this such that the presentation can run all day, constantly using "fresh" data from the Excel document?

Thank you for your help.

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ETA: This is Office 365, for what that's worth.

The linking and dynamic updating is poorly supported natively with MS.

You need a third party app to do it without coding your own solution (and the loss of functionality at the whims of MS updating O365 at any moment).

DataPoint is one solution, and about $500 perpetual license.

https://www.presentationpoint.com/software/datapoint

Consider using something other than PowerPoint - you want a web-site like interface to be able to live update.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
The linking and dynamic updating is poorly supported natively with MS.

I agree entirely. It's baffling that Excel and PowerPoint don't work together any more fluidly than this.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
DataPoint

Thank you. I'll be working with that two-week trial shortly.

Have not used PP much so bear that in mind re: this "dumb" question.

Couldn't there be a Macro or a Programatic Routine written to pull updates on the links regularly (not RT but could be close, you define the frequency)?

^^^^^

That's a neat idea. We have talked a little about a script that would shut down PP and restart it in presentation mode on a timed basis. Admittedly, I don't know how to write such a thing, but I think we can find someone in-house with that knowledge.

Excel sucks in PowerPoint. We have a quarterly presentation we give to our leadership that has to be updated by multiple organizations. The data would most certainly get corrupt inside PP. I ended up removing all the source data to native Excel. Now I just dump a picture of the data into PP. You are definitely going to need a different app or some add on. I would elect to find a different solution not dependent on MS Office.

We use Tableau to create value-added reports on data. These are updated automagically. Don't know if that software can be a "presentation" but please consider the assumption that you must employ powerpoint.