Twelve Linked Charts on a Drive That Is About to Vanish

Linking buys one thing - the chart updates when the workbook changes - and costs portability, which is exactly what this deck needs.

• Charts that will receive late data updates before the event: keep linked during the build, then break the links (Chart Design > Data > Edit Data Links is not where you break them; use File > Info > Edit Links to Files > Break Link) once the numbers are signed off. Breaking converts the chart to an embedded workbook stored inside the .pptx, so the drive letter stops mattering.
• Charts already final: embed immediately. No link, no warning banner, no dependence on Q:.
• The archive risk is the deciding factor: once FY25 is archived, every remaining link resolves to nothing and all 12 charts become grey boxes on the day of the review. Embedding is the only state that survives archiving.

Practical step: copy the source workbook locally first, then use Edit Links to Files > Change Source to repoint all 12 links at the local copy, then Break Link. Change Source once and every chart follows - do not fix them one at a time.

Brand colours. Apply them through the chart's theme colours rather than per-series manual fills, so all 12 charts can be made consistent. Set the exact RGB on the series where the brand demands it, but do the axis, gridlines, and labels via the Chart Design > Change Colors or a saved chart template so you are not repeating the work 12 times.

Greyscale. Photocopying collapses hue to luminance, so:

• Give each series a clearly different lightness, not just a different hue.
• Add a data label or marker shape difference (circle vs square vs triangle) so series are distinguishable even when two greys land close.
• Drop the gridlines to a light grey or remove them; heavy gridlines plus a trendline plus bars turns into mush at 300 dpi.
• Keep the trendline a solid, darker line than the series it sits on, and label it ('Trend') rather than relying on the legend alone.

Verify by printing to PDF in greyscale and looking at that, not at the screen. Screen-to-paper is where these decisions actually fail.

SmartArt with 34 nodes. Overflow happens because the layout is sized for far fewer shapes; PowerPoint shrinks text to a floor and then spills. Options: switch to a layout that suits a wide hierarchy (Hierarchy > Organization Chart handles depth better than a horizontal list), reduce node text to labels and move detail to notes, and split into two SmartArt graphics (e.g. leadership and delivery) with a visual link between them. If none of that reads well at projector size, convert the chart to shapes (SmartArt Design > Convert > Convert to Shapes) and lay out the boxes yourself - you lose auto-layout but gain control, and 34 nodes is beyond what most audiences will read anyway. Consider whether the org chart belongs as an appendix slide.

3D model that will not rotate. 3D models depend on the rendering stack of the machine and are unreliable over Remote Desktop, older builds, or restricted graphics drivers. First confirm the venue PC's PowerPoint version and whether hardware acceleration is available. If not, ship a fallback: a short screen-recorded rotation as an MP4 inserted on the slide, or two or three static rendered views with the animation removed. Also provide the same content as a labelled image with alt text so the meaning survives even if the model does not render.

Principle: any effect that depends on the rendering machine gets a fallback that does not.