I’m needing to know if what we want to do is possible in Power Point, or if not what application it is possible in. We are doing a presentation on comparing newspaper advertising to radio advertising. My boss wants to be able to enter in a daily circulation number and have effectiveness data appear. Then, he wants to be able to enter in advertising rates and have the presentation calculate savings and numbers of readers lost. Is this even possible?
I’m not sure PPT could do it on its own, but you can do it in Excel and insert the Excel chart into PPT. I’m not sure the exact command, but you can insert it so that it stays linked to the spreadsheet – update the spreadsheet and the PPT changes to match.
I haven’t actually tried it and, as usual with Office – best of luck making it work. 
Based on a cursory Google search, what you ask for is possible, at a price (time, money and skill).
Why not create a local web page and use Javascript? My WAG is it’s easier and cheaper to implement, and in a shorter timeframe.
Thanks, Duckster. I didn’t even know where to start for Google search terms. What I was trying was not getting me what I wanted.
I don’t know how to create a web page or use Javascript. I bet it’d be a handy skill to have for my job, apparently. I wonder if I could use FrontPage to the same effect.
JustThinkin, linking to Excel was my first thought, I just don’t think it will look as kewl or operate as smoothly as my boss envisions.
Just do it in Excel. You can format a spreadsheet to add background color, get rid of the grid, etc. When you get to the point in your presentation where you want to do the calculations just minimize PP and bring up a window with Excel. It’ll be much easier to maintain and more flexible.
ETA: you can protect all the fields you don’t want to change so you wont have any problems typing over your calculations. It’ll be much easier to use Excel. Right tool for the right job.
I agree, but it doesn’t look slick!
Sincerely,
The Underling Charged with Making Sure It’s Not Possible With the Tools We Have Until I’ve Researched That It’s Not Possible with the Tools We Have (Including an EA That’s Not a Web Developer/Software Engineer)