To import a spreadsheet using Copy / Paste

·       Create a spreadsheet within the Excel spreadsheet program (covered in the ECDL / ICDL spreadsheet module). 

·       Select the data you have created, by depressing the mouse button and dragging across the data.

·       From the Edit drop down menu, select the Copy command, to copy the data into the Clipboard.

·       If necessary start Word and either use the default document that is displayed or open an existing document. Place the insertion point at the location you wish the spreadsheet data to be displayed within Word.

·       From the Edit drop down menu, select the Paste command to paste the data from the Clipboard into your document.

To import a spreadsheet using Import / Object

·       Place the insertion point at the location you want to insert the Excel spreadsheet. From the Insert drop down menu select the Object command.

·       Scroll down the dialog box and select Microsoft Excel Worksheet .

·       Make sure that the Display as icon check box is not ticked.

·       Click on the OK button.  An empty spreadsheet will be inserted for you, as illustrated

·       You can enter data and use the Excel toolbars, which if you look closely have now, temporally, replaced the normal Word toolbars!  The point of inserting a spreadsheet in the way is that all the advanced Excel spreadsheet features are now available within Word! You do not have to go to the bother of creating a spreadsheet in Excel and then use the Clipboard to import the information into your Word document!

The normal Word toolbars looks like this.
 

·       The toolbars changes to look like this while you are inserting or editing the data within the inserted Excel spreadsheet!  

·       When you click outside the spreadsheet, on a part of your document, the normal Word toolbars will return.  You will notice however, that if you click once on the spreadsheet data to re-select it, you will see the following message displayed at the bottom, left of your screen.  

If you do double click on the spreadsheet, then the Excel toolbars will return allowing you to edit the data!  The technology that makes all this work is called OLE (Object Linking and Embedding).  In this case to use the jargon, you have embedded an Excel object within a Word document!