To create a quick chart from scratch in Word, click Chart in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab on the ribbon. All 2007 and 2010 Office applications share a common charting engine, so—provided you’re working with a Word 2007 or 2010 document format (as opposed to a Word 97–2003 document)—you’re greeted by the same Insert Chart dialog box you see in Excel, as shown in Figure 32-8.

Figure 32-8. The Chart button on Word’s Insert tab displays the same interface used in Excel and other Office applications.

After you select a chart type from this gallery and click OK, Excel creates a worksheet titled “Chart in Microsoft Word—Microsoft Excel” containing dummy data values for your chart, as shown in Figure 32-9. Edit the values in the worksheet, and then close the worksheet window. Your chart now appears in your Word document.

Figure 32-9. Inserting a chart from Word opens a dummy table in Excel used to specify the values you want to display.

There is another option in the Object dialog box you can use to create a chart in Word: Microsoft Graph Chart. This is the charting engine used in older versions of Microsoft Office, and it does not offer all the added benefits of the 2007/2010 Office charting engine. Instead, the Microsoft Graph Chart option summons a Microsoft Graph window, as shown in Figure 32-10.

Figure 32-10. Microsoft Graph is the “classic” Office charting engine.

Microsoft Graph is a more awkward environment for creating a chart, and we don’t recommend it. Instead of using Microsoft Graph, you’re better off creating a chart in Excel and then transferring it to your Word document via the Clipboard.

If you paste an Excel chart into a Word 2010 document, the chart arrives (by default) as a chart, not a picture, and because Excel 2010 and Word 2010 use a common charting engine, all the formatting tools available to you in Excel are also available in Word. With the chart selected in your Word document, three new tabs—Design, Layout, and Format—appear on the ribbon under Chart Tools, as shown in Figure 32-11. Using these tabs, you can work with the chart in Word exactly as you would in Excel. The chart will, by default, be linked to its source data. With the chart selected, the Design tab includes an Edit Data command and a Refresh Data command. You can use these to return to and modify the source or to perform a manual update, ensuring that your chart reflects the current numbers in Excel.

Figure 32-11. Three Chart Tools tabs appear in Word when an embedded chart is selected.

If you prefer, you can paste the chart as a picture by using the Picture command on the options menu that appears right after you paste. If you do this, your chart is no longer linked to the source, but you have the Word picture-formatting tools available for adding shadows, borders, and other visual effects.