Load Data to Power Pivot from the Clipboard

Excel Sales Forecasting For Dummies

Power Pivot includes an interesting option for loading data straight from the Clipboard — that is to say, pasting data you've copied from some other place. This option is meant to be used as a one-off technique to quickly get useful information into the Power Pivot data model.

As you consider this option, keep in mind that there is no real data source. It's just you manually copying and pasting. You have no way to refresh the data, and you have no way to trace back to where you copied the data from.

Imagine that you've received the Word document shown here. You like the nifty table of holidays within the document, and you believe it would be useful in your Power Pivot data model.

You can copy data straight out of Microsoft Word.

You can copy the table and then go to the Power Pivot window and click the Paste command on the Home tab. This opens the Paste Preview dialog box, shown here, where you can review what exactly will be pasted. You won't see many options here. You can specify the name that will be used to reference the table in Power Pivot, and you can specify whether the first row is a header.

The Paste Preview dialog box gives you a chance to see what you're pasting.

Clicking the OK button imports the pasted data into Power Pivot without a lot of fanfare. At this point, you can adjust the data formatting and create the needed relationships.

About This Article

About the book author:

Michael Alexander is a senior consultant at Slalom Consulting with more than 15 years’ experience in data management and reporting. He is the author of more than a dozen books on business analysis using Microsoft Excel, and has been named Microsoft Excel MVP for his contributions to the Excel community.