Insert an Excel worksheet into a Word doc

Posted on June 1, 2009 at 5:56 am

Ever need to insert an Excel worksheet into a Word document and have them linked so that when you update the main Excel worksheet, it automatically updates the one in the Word document?

There are actually two ways to insert an Excel object into Word, linking and embedding. When you embed an Excel worksheet, the worksheet will not be updated when you update the main Excel file.

When you insert a linked worksheet, whenever you open the Word file, the linked Excel sheet will update it’s values to match the main external Excel file.

In this article, I will show you how to do it using both methods.

Insert Excel Worksheet into Word – Linking

There are actually two ways to insert and link an Excel worksheet in Word. You can either copy and paste or go to Insert on the ribbon and choose Object.

Step 1: Select the area in your Excel spreadsheet that you want to include in Word and then press Ctrl + C to copy the contents.

insert excel into word

Step 2: Now go to your Word document and press Ctrl + V to paste the contents into the Word file. In order to link, you have to click on the Paste Options button at the bottom right and choose Match Destination Table Style and Link to Excel.

insert spreadsheet into word

Step 3: That’s it, now your table will be linked to the original Excel file. Whenever you update the Excel file and reopen Word, it will ask you if you want to update the doc with the data from the linked files.

update from linked files word

Step 4: Click Yes and your table will reflect the new values. If you have both files open at the same time, you’ll see the changes live.

The second way to link an Excel spreadsheet to Word is by using the Insert menu.

Step 1: In Word 2007, click on the Insert ribbon and choose Object.

insert object word

Step 2: Click on the Create from File tab and click on the Browse button to choose your file.

link excel to word

Step 3: Once you choose the file, you will see two check boxes at the right side. If you want to link the Excel spreadsheet, you need to check Link to file. If you want to embed the Excel spreadsheet, don’t check it.

link to file word

That’s it! This does the same thing as the first method I described. Like I said, if you want to embed the worksheet, just don’t check the box. Enjoy!

» Filed Under MS Office Tips

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Comments

2 Responses to “Insert an Excel worksheet into a Word doc”

  1. MJ said on : June 2nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    Excellent tip.

    Very useful.

    Thanks


  2. Andrew Egan said on : October 16th, 2009 at 9:21 am

    How do you make copies of the document? do you have to copy both files? should both files be in the same directory


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