Pasting an Excel sheet into Word not just Microsoft Dynamics GP data

Originally Posted 8/23/2012

Today’s posting is specific to Microsoft Office only, particularly Excel and Word.

When meeting with a customer yesterday, he mentioned having problems copying Excel spreadsheets into Word. When she chose to copy, the formatting was lost. She liked using the “Track Changes” feature for reviewing documents and information in Microsoft Word.

After taking this problem to my desk, I realized I had a similar issue: the paste option buttons did not appear on my screen.

To turn this feature on, click on File from your menu bar, then Options, then Advanced. Make sure the box for “Show Paste Options button when content is pasted” is marked. This feature allows you to retain formatting from the source file or the destination file, or to merge the formatting.

A couple of items to note:

1. The buttons will vary depending on the program from which you are copying and pasting.
2. Hover over each button to get a preview of how the paste will appear without committing to the paste itself.
3. You may experience a problem and not see the additional buttons at all, seeing only the paste Text button. (See below for my fix.)

Pasting default options:

Keep Source Formatting (Default): This option retains formatting that was applied to the copied text. Any style definition that is associated with the copied text is copied to the destination document.

Merge Formatting: This option discards most formatting that was applied directly to the copied text, but it retains formatting that is considered emphasis (such as bold and italic) when it is applied to only a portion of the selection. The text takes on the style characteristics of the paragraph where it is pasted. The text also takes on any direct formatting or character style properties of text that immediately precedes the cursor when the text is pasted.

Keep Text Only: This option discards all formatting and non-text elements such as pictures or tables. The text takes on the style characteristics of the paragraph where it is pasted and takes on any direct formatting or character style properties of text that immediately precedes the cursor when the text is pasted. Graphical elements are discarded, and tables are converted to a series of paragraphs.

Seeing no buttons?

I had this problem with my Microsoft Word 2010 paste option. It is believed to be a conflict between some features of Skype and/or features of Chrome. I corrected the problem with the following steps:

• I added a custom group for pasting to my Home tool bar in Word.
• In this new custom group, I added all potential pasting options.
• Once I confirmed the Clipboard group now included all pasting options, I removed the new custom group I created.

For those of you using Office 2010:

There is a feature to “Paste Special” when inserting your Excel spreadsheet as an object using OLE (Object Linking and Embedding).

What does OLE mean really? In this example, it’s a way of linking your spreadsheet to your word file. You should be very careful with this option as there is a link between the two files. Later changes to the Excel file will alter the Word document as well.

In my customer’s case, the answer would be using a paste option, not the OLE option, so the revisions could be documented.

Because these programs create many questions, I plan to write more blog posts related to Word and Excel in the future, specifically connected to data in GP.  Let me know if there is anything particular you wood like to see in regards to the integration of data between Microsoft Office and Microsoft Dynamics GP.