Inserting Excel pivot chart into Word document

jfejsa · January 18th, 2006, 10:20 PM

I have a problem with inserting Excel Pivot Charts in Word documents and I was hoping that I someone can help.

The organisation I worked for deals with large datasets which contain health related information about our entire state (NSW). To make the information useful, staff used to create Pivot Tables/Pivot Chart for individual location, date range and disease and copy generated Pivot Charts to Word Reports. Each report contains between 320 and 680 charts. We decided to streamline the process by generating required charts using VBA and them link or copy them in Word report file. Creating pivot charts in Excel was easy; however, trying to link or copy Excel pivot charts to Word is proving to be more difficult then expected.

I just donât seem to be able to see the chart (pivot or not) when I try to link or insert a chart into Word document.

For example, workbook called CamillaMonthlyRates1 - Total Seasonality Chart.xls has three sheets:

CTSP1 Totals (contains raw data)

CTSP1 Data (contains pivot table from the raw data)
CTSP1 Chart (chart built using data from CTSP1 Data)

When I manually go to Word document and click Insert, File and locate CamillaMonthlyRates1 - Total Seasonality Chart.xls I am presented with a Open Worksheet form. Open a document in Workbook combo box defaults to Entire Workbook but when I open the combo box on only has three options:

Entire Workbook

CTSP1 Totals
CTSP1 Data

The one I really want to I want to insert into Word document (CTSP1 Chart) isnât listed at all in the combo box so it can not be selected. I donât know how to do it, do you? I would love to hear from you if you do.

NOTE: I tried exporting the chart as GIF using VBA so I can link to a graphic file but that doesnât see to work as well as we expected either.

I used the following code during testing to generate the graphic:
Code:

Code:

'Export chart as graphic 
strChartFileName = "N:\DATA\Projects\Area\CDAP\JF Charts\Charts\CTSP1" & Format(Date, "yymmdd") & ".gif" 
ActiveChart.Export Filename:=strChartFileName, FilterName:="GIF"]

This resulting file was saved as "CTSP10~1.GIF" using DOS naming convention (8 characters long) with rest of the name truncated, not as "CTSP1060119.GIF" as expected with todays (19/1/2006) save. Saved chart also looks like a screen dump; combo boxes are displayed as grey combo boxes on screen, âDrop Series Fields Hereâ pivot table prompt is visible in the graphic just like on the screen and the quality is not great seem more blurred then when we used Windows Copy/Paste to copy chart from Excel to Word. I tried exporting using GIF and JPG format without much difference.

Any suggestions?

mjppaba · January 19th, 2006, 04:00 AM

Hi,

Rather than using [Insert]...[File] use the [insert]...[object] instead. when prompted it will display a dialogue box which you "insert from file" rather than making a selection from the list, find the workbook and select it. It works for me. You can then automate this. Are you using word VBA or Excel VBA? you may need to utilise the automation functionality if you are going cross application.

Cheers

Matt

jfejsa · January 19th, 2006, 06:41 PM

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your input but I don't think I could use your suggestion at this stage.

I used Excel VBA to generate pivot tables and charts which are also used by other users for their own reporting needs and copied into this Word report I am trying to automate (about 500 pages report) using 320 charts. using an object would mean reprogramming Exce pivot table code. Basically each pivot chart can be used number of times to produce diffent chart by changing parameters, ie location, year, gender etc. It's easy in done in Excel and wouldn't want to start changing to Word VBA at this stage. I was playing around and figured that I could actually use Automation to achieve this objective by using the following code:

    'Copy chart graphic to Clipboard
    ActiveChart.ChartArea.Select
    ActiveChart.ChartArea.Copy

    'Paste Clipboard graphic to Word document
    objWord.Selection.PasteAndFormat (wdChartPicture)
     objWord.Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter

It worked fine in test so I hope it'll fine in production. So basically what the application does now is the following:

Create required pivot table and pivot chart

Save created workbook so it can be used by other users to check and manipulate requried data (ie change location, year, gender disease etc)

Then repeate for all required variation for the generated pivot chart (1 or more per chart)

Export generated chart as GIF graphic so be used by other users

Save generated chart to Clipboard so it can be pasted in any application

Use Automation and Word VBA to paste the chart at a specific bookmark in Word document

Repeated for all required charts

Save generated Word document under a new name (report plus creation date)

Done

In a nutshell, I am using Excel VBA to perform most of the work and Word VBA using automation to insert requried charts in Word report. I decided that we will have to cancel linking the charts to Word template file to make it easy to refresh once the charts are inserted. As a result each time the report needs to be refresh the whole procedure will have to run which will make it a long procedure (hours???) because we will be looking at millions of records per chart repeated 320 times.

Sanjo · March 15th, 2007, 03:53 PM

I really don't understand VBA at all but I have been trying to find a way to export 100 charts out of Excel into a Word document and I came across this question. Am I on the right lines?

Can you please tell me if the following would work for me? I'm currently using MS Office 2000.

Thanks in anticipation.
Jo