"Paste Special" or equivalent way to paste tables from Word to Keynote?

Question

"Paste Special" or equivalent way to paste tables from Word to Keynote?

I'm trying to paste formatted tables from MS Word to Keynote. In Powerpoint, I would use the "Paste Special" command from the Edit menu, selecting "Picture" from the resulting options. This would keep all formatting intact. I've tried "Paste" and "Paste and Match Style" commands in Keynote but all I get is an unformatted single column of data from the original table far exceeding the size of the Keynote slide. Does anyone know if there is a way to do this?

I appreciate any help on this.

MBP 15.4", Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Jan 30, 2008 10:00 AM

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Answer 1

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,597 points

Jan 30, 2008 12:51 PM in response to Michael Seldin

Try passing it through Preview. Might not work but I'm thinking it should. Copy the table, open Preview, do Command-N, copy again, then paste that into Keynote.

Now, Command-N may show your problem right there, but if it looks good in Preview, then it should look the same in Keynote.

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Answer 2

Jan 30, 2008 4:32 PM in response to Kyn Drake

Hi Kyn,

Interesting suggestion. I'd never have thought of that.

Doing it that way does keep the formatting intact but it also pastes in to Keynote much larger than the original and it doesn't then fit in the slide. Past Special, in Powerpoint kept the tables the original size.

My current, clumsy work around is to create the slides in Keynote, leaving blank the bodies of those slides that will contain Word tables. I then export the Keynote file to Excel where I can Paste Special to get the Word tables into the presentation. Then I can open the presentation in either Powerpoint or Keynote and it all looks good. I'd much prefer, though, to be able to work just in Keynote.

Thanks,

Michael

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Answer 3

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,597 points

Jan 30, 2008 4:49 PM in response to Michael Seldin

If you were to resize the table so that it DOES fit, does it look ok then? If it does, then maybe you'll want to try selecting "Reduce placed images to fit on slides" in the Preferences under General.

By the way, just remembered another handy little tool. Not sure if it work, but it does say that it allows you to export Excel to Keynote.

http://homepage.mac.com/imaxinc/xl2k/index.html

It has some limitations and may not even run on the latest OS, but you can give it a try.

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Answer 4

Jan 30, 2008 5:02 PM in response to Kyn Drake

Generally, the tables do look ok if resized to fit the slides. Interestingly, I already had checked the "Reduce placed images to fit on slides" but it didn't seem to be of much help. I hadn't even remembered checking it but found it that way when I just not looked.

xl2k looks like it might be a very interesting little tool. Thanks for pointing me towards that.

It has taken me an odd combination of Excel and Keynote to get this presentation finished, being able to do some things that I needed to in Excel and others in Keynote. I just finished it and it can open relatively intact in either but couldn't be built in just one, if that makes any sense.

Thanks again.

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