Phillips is an experienced Microsoft Office user with a dual-honors degree in Linguistics and Hispanic Studies. Prior to starting with How-to Geek in January 2024, he worked as a document producer, data manager, and content creator for over ten years, and loves making spreadsheets and documents in his spare time. Tony is also an academic proofreader, experienced in reading, editing, and formatting over 3 million words of personal statements, resumes, reference letters, research proposals, and dissertations. Before joining How-To Geek, Tony formatted and wrote documents for legal firms, including contracts, Wills, and Powers of Attorney. Tony is obsessed with Microsoft Office! He will find any reason to create a spreadsheet, exploring ways to add complex formulas and discover new ways to make data tick. He also takes pride in producing Word documents that look the part. He has worked as a data manager in a secondary school in the UK and has years of experience in the classroom with Microsoft PowerPoint. He loves to encounter problems in Microsoft Office and use his expertise and legal-level training to find solutions. Outside of the Microsoft world, Tony is a keen dog owner and lover, football fan, astrophotographer, gardener, and golfer. Sign in to your How-To Geek account Add Us Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap One of the best things about Microsoft 365 is how its apps can work together. Loop can talk to Teams, Lists can talk to Power Automate, and Word can talk to Outlook. But when I thought about the cross-app connections I use most—and the ones that save me the most time—I noticed something: they all involve Excel.
The integrations below all work with my Microsoft 365 Personal subscription. That means I'm using the suite's desktop apps (where appropriate) and leaving out features and apps that typically require a Business or Education subscription.
Close Pretty much every presentation has a chart, and Excel is a great place to build them. Yes, you can create charts in PowerPoint, but I find it's much quicker in Excel, especially when the numbers are likely to change.
For a long time, I created a chart in Excel and pasted it into PowerPoint. But then the numbers would change, and I'd have to go back to Excel, find the chart, copy it again, and replace the old version in PowerPoint. It worked, but it was painfully repetitive.
Now, when I know the data is likely to change, I use Paste Link instead. That way, I still use Excel to work with the numbers, while PowerPoint keeps a link to the chart. When I reopen the presentation, PowerPoint can retrieve the latest information from Excel, so I don't have to rebuild the chart from scratch or paste it again.
I use Microsoft Forms when I need other people to give me information, because the alternative is usually me collecting their answers and then typing them into Excel myself. Some other form-building apps like Jotform and Cognito can send new submissions into Excel, but you often have to set up that connection yourself. With Microsoft Forms and Excel for the web, the connection is already there.
When I open a form's responses in Excel, Microsoft creates a workbook that stays connected to the form. New responses appear as new rows as people submit them, so I don't have to copy and paste anything or reformat somebody else's answers. The people filling out the form are also entering their own information, which cuts out the typos and transcription mistakes I'd risk making myself.
The important bit is that the live connection is to Excel for the web. If I download the workbook and open the copy in desktop Excel, I've got a static version of the responses rather than the live response workbook. That's fine once I've finished collecting responses, though, because I can then work with the finished data in desktop Excel.
