6 Methods to Copy Table from Excel to Word in 2024

It is common for many of us to use both Word and Excel together when working on projects—especially for students, accountants, copywriters, data scientists, and many other professionals.

The pain point is simple. Charts and tables prepared in Excel would most likely be needed in Word when preparing reports and providing in-depth analysis. But it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t affect its contents and formatting style too.

Luckily for you, there are a few ways you can go about doing this. This blog will explain how to copy a table from Excel to Word in simple detailed steps and ensure you can use both apps with ease for your important projects.

Part 1. Common Ways to Copy a Table/Chart from Excel into a Word Document?

First, let us learn how you can directly copy a table and a chart from Excel into a Word document. This is common when preparing for reports and individuals will need their tables or charts prepared in Excel to support the report/analysis.

1.1 Copy a Table from Excel to Word

There are a few ways in which you can copy a Table from Excel to a Word document. Here they are:

Paste as a Static Image

You can import an Excel table as a static image that you can use simply as an illustration without any updating.

Highlight the cells in Excel where your table is located.
Press Ctrl + C to copy the table. You can also right-click and go to Copy, or head to the Home tab, and click Copy.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the table inserted.
Head to the Home tab, and click the Paste button. Under Paste Options, click the Picture icon or simply press the U key. You can also right-click and find the same options under the paste options.

Paste as Source Format

You can import the Excel table as text, as well as keep the source’s formatting style.

Highlight the cells in Excel where your table is located.
Press Ctrl + C to copy the table.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the table inserted.
Press Ctrl + V to paste directly using this keyboard shortcut. Or you can head to Home, click the Paste button, and under Paste Options, click the Keep Source Formatting (K) option to keep the same formatting style as you prepared in Excel.

Paste as a Linked Object

Another interesting thing is you can import your Excel table to Word as linked to your original spreadsheet and have it updated in real-time when you make changes to your Excel sheet.

Highlight the cells in Excel where your table is located.
Press Ctrl + C to copy the table.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the table inserted.
Head to the Home tab, and click the Paste button. Then, click Paste Special.
A pop-up will appear. Check the box Paste link, and then select As Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object. Click Ok.

You will find the table in your Word document will refresh automatically when you make changes to values in your Excel spreadsheet.

Note that this won’t be possible if you had pasted your table as a static image.

1.2 Copy a Chart from Excel to Word

Let us see how you can import an Excel chart to your Word document. Luckily, it follows the same method as you do for importing tables.

Select the chart in your Excel sheet that you want to import.
Press Ctrl + C to copy the chart. You can also right-click and go to Copy, or head to the Home tab, and click Copy.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the chart inserted.
Press Ctrl + V to paste the chart. You can also head over to the Home tab, and click the Paste button.

Updating the Chart in Word

You can also refresh the chart’s data in Word after making changes to your Excel sheet since it’s already linked once you had pasted it onto your Word document.

Note that this wouldn’t work if you had pasted the chart into Word as a static image or picture.

Select the chart you had pasted in your Word file.
Head over to the Chart Design tab.
Under the Data section, click Refresh Data.

1.3 Copy Data from Excel Table to Word

You can also copy data from your Excel Table to Word without copying its table borders. There are two ways in which you can do this.

Copying a single data

Head over to the table in Excel and highlight the cell where you want to copy a single data.
Press Ctrl + C to copy.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the data inserted.
Press Ctrl + V to paste or head over to the Home tab, and click Paste.

Copying entire data from the table

Head over to the table in Excel and highlight the cells where your table is located.
Press Ctrl + C to copy the table’s content.
Head over to your Word document and place the cursor on where you want the contents inserted.
Head over to the Home tab, go to Paste, then Paste Options, and click Keep Text Only (T).

Part 2. An Alternative Way to Copy Excel Table to Word

The above methods are common ways to copy Excel tables to Word. However, some users might be using a smartphone and it is inconvenient for them to copy Excel tables to Word. In such a case, UPDF comes for help.

UPDF is a comprehensive document editing/annotating/managing tool for computer and smartphone users. Follow the steps below to copy an Excel table to Word easily:

Export or save your Excel file to a PDF document.
Download and launch UPDF on your phone/computer.

Open the converted file in UPDF, and click the Edit PDF on the left sidebar.

You can freely edit the table to your preference. Then, export the table to a Word file.

That's it! You've successfully copied Excel to Word by converting it with UPDF.

Except for the above feature, UPDF also offers more advanced tools, including:

Edit PDFs easily with one click.
Annotate PDFs with bundles of tools.
OCR PDFs conveniently.
Convert PDFs to other formats, including Word, Excel, TXT, XML, RTF, HTML, etc.

Part 3. Extended Reading: How to Copy Excel Data to Word Table

Interestingly, you can also import Excel data to a table in Word as well. Follow these steps after opening a new Word document:

Head over to the Insert tab, and go to the Tables section.
Click the Table icon, and choose the Insert Table option.
A pop-up will appear. Select the number of columns and rows to your preference.
Head over to your Excel file and select the data in your spreadsheet that you want to import.
Press Ctrl + C to copy.
Head back to your Word document and highlight the table cells where you want to paste the data from Excel.
Press Ctrl + V to paste or head to the Paste Options under the Home tab and also choose the Keep Text Only (T) button.