While working with PowerPoint 2007 today I noticed a strange behavior:

If you have a Chart in an Excel workbook, and you want to insert this chart as link in a PowerPoint Slide by using Paste Special, it may fail to paste anything in the slide if the current view is Outline View.

Also, even if the current active tab on the Normal View of a PowerPoint presentation is Outline View and it has the input focus, PowerPoint will fail to paste anything. And, the stranger part is that you will not get any message box informing so!? (…not surprised!)

How to avoid this:

You can paste the chart by following any of the following ways:

1. Close Pane 1 of Normal View.
2. Activate the Slides tab in Pane 1 (see screenshot below).
3. While keeping the Outline tab as selected tab in Pane 1, Activate Pane 2 (Slide pane) by clicking in it, before you select Paste Special.

 

Please note that you may encounter the issue even if the Outline tab in Pane 1 is activated and it has input focus.

Posted in Office (General)