How to Link an Excel File to a Word Document

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Darlene Antonelli, MA. Darlene Antonelli is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. Darlene has experience teaching college courses, writing technology-related articles, and working hands-on in the technology field. She earned an MA in Writing from Rowan University in 2012 and wrote her thesis on online communities and the personalities curated in such communities.

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Need to reference an Excel chart, table, or data set in your Word document? You can easily add a quick link to any Excel file in a Word document, or even embed the file within the document to avoid the possibility broken links. This wikiHow article will teach you how to create a quick link to any Excel file in your Microsoft Word document.

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Open your Word document. You can either open it from Word by going to File > Open or you can right-click the .doc(x) file and select Open with > Word.

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On Mac, this tab is along the top of your screen instead.

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Click Object and Object . It's in the Text grouping and will open an Object Dialog Box. [2] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

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Click the Create from File tab. It's at the top of the window. [3] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

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Click Browse . Your file manager (File Explorer for Windows and Finder for Mac) will open so you can look for your Excel file. [4] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

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Double-click to select your Excel file. Alternatively, you can single-click the file to select it, then click Open/OK to choose it.

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If you'd rather embed the Excel file within your Word document, check the box next to "Display as an icon" and click OK.
If you have a chart or table from Excel that you'd like to insert in your Word document, copy the chart in Excel (Ctrl + C (Windows) or Cmd + C (Mac)) and paste it into Word (Ctrl + V (Windows) or Cmd + V (Mac)). Update the chart in Word after you've changed it in Excel by clicking the chart in Word, then going to Chart Design/Chart Tools Design > Data > Refresh. [6] X Trustworthy Source Microsoft Support Technical support and product information from Microsoft. Go to source

Community Q&A

How do I dynamically embed an XLSX table in a DOCX file? wikiHow Staff Editor
Staff Answer

This answer was written by one of our trained team of researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

wikiHow Staff Editor Staff Answer

You can copy your chart in Excel then paste it in Word. To update it in Word, select your chart, then go to "Chart Design" or "Chart Tools Design" and click Data > Refresh.

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