How to Insert an Excel Table into Word

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA. Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions.

This article has been viewed 46,498 times.

Is there data in your Microsoft Excel sheet that you want to display in a Word document? This wikiHow will teach you how to copy data from your spreadsheet to your Word document using the Microsoft Office desktop suite.

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

If you have data or a table of data, you'll be able to change how the pasted information appears within the Paste Options, all steps are otherwise identical if you're trying to copy and paste data or tables.

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Select the data in your Excel sheet that you want to copy and paste into Word. Using your mouse, click the first cell of data you want to copy and drag it to include the range (if you want to copy more than one cell).

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n"> Press Ctrl + C (Windows) or ⌘ Cmd + C (Mac). You can also right-click and select Copy.

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Open a document in Word. You can open a document you've been working on or you can create a new document.

Move your cursor in the Word document where you want to paste the Excel data." width="460" height="343" />

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Move your cursor in the Word document where you want to paste the Excel data. When you press the keyboard shortcut, the data you've copied from Excel will paste into the Word document.

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Press Ctrl + V (Windows) or ⌘ Cmd + V (Mac). The data you copied from Excel will appear in your Word document.

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Click Paste Options . You should see a "Paste Options" drop-down next to your pasted data or chart. If not, you'll find "Paste Options" above the document editing space on the left side of the window under "Home."

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

Keep Source Formatting: Keeps data as it was formatted in Excel.
Use Destination Styles: Updates the data to reflect Word's style. Use this paste style if you have data in a chart format with gridlines you want to keep.
Link & Keep Source Formatting: Keeps the formatting as it was in the Excel document, however, the data in the pasted table will update any time you edit it in Excel.
Link & Use Destination Style: Removes the original formatting and replaces it with that of your Word document. This also links the data to the original spreadsheet so that updating the spreadsheet will also update your Word document.
Picture: Inserts the data as an image instead of a table and cannot be updated.
Keep Text Only: Pastes only the text from the table and ignores all formatting (such as the lines in the table). However, each row of data in the chart/table is separated by a new paragraph and each column is separated by tabs. [1] X Research source

Fair Use (screenshot)
\n">

You want to save your progress after you paste data from Excel into your Word document.

Expert Q&A

Ask a Question 200 characters left Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. Advertisement

Tips

Submit a Tip All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published Please provide your name and last initial Thanks for submitting a tip for review!