InDesign Chart Formatting Issues

[Brenna5FDD]

I am having issues with inDesign charts automatically returning to a default template chart when opening existing design files. (See below for reference). When I open existing inDesign files that contain charts with information, my inDesign automatically places this exact chart, erasing the previous information. Does anyone know why this is happening and what I need to do to fix it? 

[BobLevine]

First off, it's a table, not a chart. So if you're doing any searches for issues, that should be the keyword.

Is the table linked to an external source such as an Excel spreadsheet or Word table?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yes, I was wondering if I had missed a new Charting feature. 🙂

If it's an imported table, it's important to assign a fully defined Table (and Cell) style to it. I think that if the style was unsaved/undefined, it would tend to reset to default on each new import.

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[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Good point, James.

But assigning table styles to a table doesn't replace the data in the cells, just the formatting and appearance of the table. Or is this a new feature in InDesign?

The poster said:

When I open existing inDesign files that contain charts with information, my inDesign automatically places this exact chart, erasing the previous information.

I'm wondering...Maybe the original table is a graphic of the table, rather than a live table?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Not sure it's relevant; just tossing out possibles in lieu of further info.

I don't often import/link tables, but I recall having problems with reopen/update of docs with Excel tables reverting to a default style if the frame and existing table didn't have a fully saved style.

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[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

To help us better understand what's happening, can you tell us:

How was the original table created? There are 3 ways it could have been made:

• File / Place and import a Word document that contains the table.
• File / Place and import an Excel spreadsheet.
• Create / Table and it create a new blank table from scratch and type the data by hand into each table cell.

"Charts" are graphics of data, like pie charts and bar charts.

Your screen capture shows a table that has columns and rows of data in cells, which is like a spreadsheet.