Newbie! ? on inserting excel into Visio

[SRS]

Greetings...

I was given a project at work yesterday that...to make a long story
short...had a happy conclusion, but I think there probably was a more
effecient way to accomplish this.

I had to make a 4-page Visio document. On each page was an outline of a
specific state. Then I had to insert from a huge Excel document nearly 100
groups of cells (each group had only 4 excel cells).

When I was done, everything looked great...boss was very happy...BUT the
file was HUGE!

I inserted each of these Excel 'groups' by clicking on 'paste special' then
choosing 'microsoft office excel worksheet'. I'm guessing this was my
mistake.

So...my question is...what is the most effecient way to insert excel cells?
I want to have as much flexibility (for sizing, movement, etc.) with each
insert.

Does this make sense? Hope so...please remember I'm just learning Visio.

Thank you!

 

[Al Edlund]

not sure what the objective was of the drill, but sounds like you were
trying to map business information to a graphic of a state. For a one time
shot what you did may have been the way to go. If you have to keep the data
current I prefer MapPoint linked to SQL implementation a lot better for
datamining scenarios that have a high geography content. The good news is
that watching how MS is using graphics in the new server and development
tools it would appear that some interesting things may be coming down the
road for the next office updates.
Al

 

[SRS]

Al:
Yes...mapping business info to a graphic of a state is exactly what I was
doing (our business interests in the states affected by Katrina).

The excel info is not something that needs to be updated. This was a
one-time shot so we could see where we'll be having problems because of the
tragedy.

I don't have MapPoint, just Office 2003 and Visio.

I guess I just should have asked...should I have pasted in the excel info
with a different option other than >Paste Special>Microsoft Office Excel
Worksheet? Not sure what the other options (metafile?? or something like
that) are, but would one of those have given me plenty of flexibility with
each insert and not have created such a large file?

Thanks again...
SRS

 

[Al Edlund]

the insert as excel worksheet (AFAIK) is an oledb link to allow you to click
on it and go back to the worksheet to update. inserting as a emf/wmf
probably would have lowered the size somewhat, although I don't know how
much.
al