hi Mark
I finally found a sort of solution, though if you or anyone out ther
has a simpler one, I'd love to hear. I've picked up on your ideas o
opening excel through pp and also inserting an excel chart.

The code below places linked copies of all the charts in a worksheet o
successive slides in a pp presentation by going through thes
processes:

* opens excel
* deletes all slides
* places an unspecified linked chart from the target excel file file o
slide 1
* for each chart in excel, copies the linked chart onto a new slide
* overwrites the link source for each new chart with a link to th
named chart sheet in excel
* updates the links

clunky, but it does the job

Sub overwrite_link_sources()
Dim Excel_App As Excel.Application
Dim Excel_Book As Excel.Workbook
'source file:
file_fullname = "c:\temp\chart source.xls"

Set Excel_App = Nothing
Set Excel_App = New Excel.Application
Set Excel_Book = Excel_App.Workbooks.Open(file_fullname
UpdateLinks:=False)

'delete all slides, then insert linked chart on new slide 1
ActivePresentation.Slides.Range.Delete
ActivePresentation.Slides.Add(Index:=1, Layout:=ppLayoutBlank).Select
ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes.AddOLEObj ect(Left:=120#
Top:=110#, Width:=480#, Height:=320#, FileName:=file_fullname
Link:=msoTrue).Select
With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange
.Left = 8
.Top = 12
.LockAspectRatio = msoFalse
.Height = 520
.Width = 700
.LinkFormat.AutoUpdate = ppUpdateOptionManual
End With

'copy linked chart on slide 1
ActiveWindow.View.GotoSlide Index:=1
ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes(1).Copy

'add new slides, copy the linked chart from slide 1, then overwrite th
link
For n = 1 To Excel_Book.Charts.Count
ActiveWindow.View.GotoSlid
Index:=ActivePresentation.Slides.Add(Index:=n + 1
Layout:=ppLayoutBlank).SlideIndex
ActiveWindow.View.Paste
fncn = file_fullname & "!" & Excel_Book.Charts(n).Name
ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes(1).LinkFo rmat.SourceFullName
fncn
'ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.LinkFormat.Upda te
Next

ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Delete ' delete dummy slide

'update links
For Each sld In ActivePresentation.Slides
For Each sh In sld.Shapes
If sh.Type = msoLinkedOLEObject Then
sh.LinkFormat.Update
End If
Next
Next


Set Excel_Book = Nothing
Set Excel_App = Nothing

End Su

--
Message posted from http://www.ExcelForum.com