Part 6: Collaboration and the Internet in C#.NET

Making Denso QR Bar Code in C#.NET Part 6: Collaboration and the Internet

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Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Inside Out When you display an ordinary chart (not a PivotChart) with chart interactivity, you can modify the underlying data, but you can t reformat the chart (other than to suppress the legend display). Note that Excel displays the supporting data even if the chart originated on a chart sheet, not as an embedded chart.

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The user interface for the interactive PivotTable component is considerably more complex than the spreadsheet and chart interfaces and requires an understanding of PivotTables. We ll take up that topic in 30, Analyzing Data with PivotTables Reports.

21 Linking and Embedding 22 Using Hyperlinks 23 Using Excel Data in Word and PowerPoint Documents 569 581 589

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Embedding vs. Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 Embedding vs. Static Pasting . . . . . . . . 570 Embedding and Linking from the Clipboard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571 Embedding and Linking with the Object Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574 Manipulating Embedded Objects . . . . . . 576 Managing Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 Linking vs. Hyperlinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

Microsoft no longer uses the term object linking and embedding (OLE) to describe its technology for creating compound documents that is, documents that integrate data from multiple applications. But the technology is still there, and if you work with the full suite of Microsoft Office applications, you will undoubtedly have many occasions to take advantage of it. Part of the reason that OLE has disappeared from Microsoft s formal vocabulary is that linking and embedding capability is nearly universal in major Microsoft Windows applications now, and it ostensibly works so well that you seldom have to think about what you re doing. Nevertheless, it is important to have a general understanding of the differences between embedding and linking, to know when it s appropriate to use one form of integration as opposed to the other, and to know how to fix matters in the event that a link becomes broken.

When you embed another application s data in Excel, your Excel document stores a complete copy of the source data. Because you have a complete copy of the source data (the paragraph from Microsoft Word, for example, or the voice annotation you created in Sound Recorder), that information remains intact even if the source is destroyed or becomes otherwise unavailable. But the embedded copy becomes completely independent from the source. The source might change, but the embedded copy does not. When you link your Excel document to some external data, your document records pointers to the source of that data. If the source changes, your workbook can change accordingly. Whether it changes automatically to match the source, or only when you request an update, depends on options that you set. In any event, your Excel document retains a connection with the source. If the information you link or embed is text or a graphic, Excel renders it (makes it visible on your worksheet) if it s in a format that Excel recognizes and if you have not explicitly asked for an iconic display. Otherwise, Excel displays an icon that represents the linked or embedded information. When you double-click the icon, Excel renders the information (plays the sound clip or video, for example), provided an application capable of rendering it is available. 569