Word automatically resizing pasted Excel tables and charts

[DarrylR]

I'm trying to determine what causes Word to resize Excel tables and charts
that are pasted using Edit -> Paste Special.

I am pasting charts using the following process:
1. Select a chart object in Excel (one that's embedded on a worksheet, not
on a separate chart sheet) by clicking the chart area.
2. Select Edit -> Copy.
3. Create a blank Word document, and paste the chart into it using Edit ->
Paste Special ->As Microsoft Excel Chart Object.

And I am pasting tables using the following process:
1. Highlight a range of cells in Excel (using Edit -> Goto -> <named
range>).
2. Select Edit -> Copy.
3. Create a blank Word document, and paste the range into it using Edit ->
Paste Special ->As Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object.

When I perform the steps above on my machine, charts are not scaled at all
(which is what I would expect/hope). Tables are scaled, however, such that
their height is 97% of the original height, and the width is 105% of the
original width. On another colleague's machine, charts and tables are both
scaled to 85% of their original size. Our machines are both running Word
2003 SP2 (build 11.6568.6568) under Windows 2000 Professional SP4.

I tried turning off "Adjust formatting when pasting from Microsoft Excel"
(Tools -> Options -> Edit -> Settings...) and, when this had no effect,
turned off "Smart cut and paste" entirely. Nothing seems to affect the
behavior. Is there some setting that I'm missing?

Regards,
Darryl R.

 

[DarrylR]

Believe it or not, Copy/Paste behavior is affected by the default printer
selected on the machine. I discovered that the most significant size
reduction occurs when "Acrobat PDFWriter" is selected as the default
printer. The scaling percentage varies depending upon the default printer
selected. The only printer driver that I've found that doesn't result in
scaling is an old HP 5P/MP.

Regards,
Darryl R.

 

[ANONYMOUS]

Could it also be due to the size of the paper? I guess the
computer/program is clever enough to compensate for smaller paper size!
We are talking about OS that has grahical interface and the program also
has graphical interface right? If so then graphical packages are
working as they should and you have proved it! Congratulations.

 

[DarrylR]

Thanks for your reply, but the scaling isn't related to a change in paper
size. I may not have made it clear in my attempt to briefly describe my
findings, but the scaling occurs even if Acrobat isn't involved. For
example, you get different scaling when you perform the paste with a Xerox
Phaser 6350 selected as your default printer than you do with an HP 5P/MP
selected. And as far as I know, a Letter size page is still 8.5" x 11" on
both of these printers.

Regards,
Darryl R.

 

[Ed]

Letter size is the same, but the non-printable margin varies between
printers. What I've had to do sometimes is create a text box and copy my
Excel chart into that. I can then scale my text box any size, even beyond
the page margins, and scale the Excel chart or table inside the text box.
You can run into other issues with that, though, and you will never beat the
margin the printer refuses to put ink on.

Ed