Advanced Export gives you the choice to preserve cells' current visibility and/or preserve image width in PowerPoint/Word when updating tables linked from Excel. Looking for information about automatically resizing an Excel chart/table to an area within Word or PowerPoint? Click here for our written instructions OR watch the video. 

Preserve rows and columns (in)visibility

Exporting a table with some hidden or grouped rows or columns that other times you want to display with them unhidden? Use the Advanced Export preserve cells visibility option when exporting your table so that future unhiding those rows or columns in your linked Excel table won’t change what’s visible in PowerPoint/Word – even when you hit ‘update’.

An example use case of this feature: In Excel you have one table displaying all of your global sales figures but need to create a separate sales report for each business unit. No need to duplicate tables in Excel anymore! Hide the irrelevant columns or rows so you’re only displaying the figures you need for each businses unit and select ‘preserve current cells’ visibility’ when advanced exporting to your presentation. Repeat the same process for each business unit. 

In the above example we show the Client C row is hidden in Excel after the export was made. When updating the exports in PPT the default export then now does not include the row (because it is now hidden in Excel). For the advanced export the row is still visible. Unhiding the row in Excel means the row is then visible in both export types next time they are updated. 

To use this feature:

1. In Excel hide/unhide the cells so you have the table only displaying the data you want to export 
2. Select the table
3. Click on Advanced Export (right next to your usual ‘Export to PowerPoint/Word’ buttons on your UpSlide ribbon in Excel
4. Toggle the new Preserve current cells visibility button in the Advanced Export pop-up
5. Click Ok and your table will be exported

Preserve image width in PowerPoint/Word

The UpSlide Link preserves the width of your linked table or chart when you update it, but what about when you’ve added more columns since your initial export? Preserving the image width can cause the text in these tables to shrink when you hit ‘update’ and the table height decreasing in PowerPoint.

Advanced Export allows you to override this by disabling preserving image width. Your table width will expand beyond the original export.

An example use case of this feature: You have a presentation where you are presenting quarterly financial results and have a summary slide showing all the historical quarters of this financial year. You know the maximum number of columns the table will ever have (4 * columns per quarter). Therefore when you update the summary you are not worried about the slide/page running out of horizontal room. You know the table can expand the width without going off the page and want to update with these new columns added.

In the above example we show that when we add a new column into a table using the default export the width in PowerPoint will remain the same. To retain the same proportions the height will decrease and reduce the visible font size. The advanced export simply adds the new column and makes no change to the table height or font size in PowerPoint.

To use this feature:

1. Select the table you want to export
2. Click Advanced Export
3. Toggle the new Preserve width in Powerpoint/Word button in the Advanced Export pop-up
4. Click Ok and your table will be exported
5. If you’ve switched off the Preserve width function, any subsequent update will also update the width of your table if you have increased its size (and preserve the font size of your text)