Excel to PowerPoint Link

Stop manually updating numbers in PowerPoint presentations

smartRush provides a reliable way to link Excel data to PowerPoint presentations. If the underlying data changes numbers, tables and charts can be updated by a single click within seconds. No manual work is necessary. All while keeping your processes unchanged.

The following video shows how smartRush links Excel to PowerPoint:

Linking Excel data to PowerPoint is easy and does not affect your established processes:

  1. Select the data in Excel you want to link to Powerpoint. This can be a single cell, a range or a chart.
  2. Go to your PowerPoint presentation and press the Right ALT button + v to insert the data from Excel
  3. smartRush will automatically link the Excel file with the PowerPoint presentation
  4. A linked item will be inserted automatically, you do not have to do anything

Appearance of linked smartRush items:

Linked smartRush items appear just as if they had been inserted by using native PowerPoint. The following picture shows two texts, one of them has been typed in into PowerPoint the other one has been linked using smartRush:

Comparison of plain text and linked smartRush item

As you can see smartRush items appear exactly like if they had been entered manually. smartRush items are fully formatable and all formatting that can be applied to regular text can also be applied to smartRush items. In addition smartRush items can easily be identified by using the highlight functionality.

Highlighting smartRush items

This example shows that in addition to the revenue number also the date value and the region have been linked to Excel. Highlighting may also be used to quickly identify any outdated files. In the following example red highlighting was selected for any outdated files:

Identifying outdated numbers with smartRush

Identifying outdated numbers due to old Excel files could take hours if done manually. By using smartRush this only takes seconds. If you select the smartRush item a menu pops up with common options:

Popup menu for smartRush items

These options include common formatting options for numbers, texts and dates. Formatting in PowerPoint can be changed without affecting the underlying formatting in Excel. This is especially useful if you are writing a report in a different language with different thousands and decimal separators.

If the underlying data in Excel changes the usual consulting workflow is to update all numbers in PowerPoint manually. When using smartRush updateding all numbers is just one click and only takes seconds. The linked item will be updated immediately while keeping all previously set formats. The change will immediately be visible in the items history:

Updated smartRush item showing the new value in the text box as well as the history in the smartRush taskpane

smartRush provides the only truly reliable technology to link Excel data to PowerPoint on the market. smartRush works with currently opened and closed Excel files as well as with Excel files stored on Sharepoint Online, OneDrive or Teams. Usually Excel files evolve during a consulting project. With smartRush files can easily be replaced by newer versions without loosing any previously made settings.