Question

I have a chart which has large number of points on X-axis.(e.g. ECG).

How do I put this chart as a horizontally scrollable object in Powerpoint 2007/2010?
If i just paste it, it gets resized to fit width and becomes unreadable.

I want to maintain the height by including a horizontal scroll bar for chart.

Answer 1

I am not sure if that can be done. Having said that I can give you an interesting alternative. 🙂

Let’s say our chart looks like this in Excel

Right click on the chart and click on Copy. Open Ms Paint and paste that picture. Save that picture, say as C:\MyChart.Jpg

Next open MS Powerpoint and navigate to the Developer Tab. (See Snapshot) In the developer tab, click on additional controls button and select “Microsoft Web Browser” and insert that control in your respective slide. Size it accordingly. Also place a Command Button. Name it Show Chart or anything else what you feel is right 🙂

Double click on the command button and paste this code there

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
    WebBrowser1.Navigate "C:\MyChart.jpg"
End Sub

Now press F5 to run the presentation. Your screen will look like this.

When you press the command button, you will get what you wanted 🙂

DISADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD

1) You cannot edit the chart in MS Powerpoint. You will have to do that in Excel and repeat the entire procedure to save it as an image.

2) You cannot distribute your PPT. You will have to send the image separately with the PPT and also you will have to change the command button code (assuming that PPT and image stay in the same folder) to

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
    WebBrowser1.Navigate ActivePresentation.Path & "\MyChart.jpg"
End Sub

OR

You will have to embed the xls file in the ppt and write a complex code to extract the chart from the excel file and save it to the users temp directory. You can then use that image in the Webbrowser1