How to Embed Looker Studio Charts in Slides

Today we'll dive into a use case that can be particularly useful for those of us on a budget! Google Data Studio, now called Looker Studio, is a widely-used free dashboard solution. It's easy to build out a dashboard using their pre-made templates for Google Ads, Google Search Console, and You Tube. Or you could link in data from hundreds of supported data sources.

But getting the charts from Looker Studio into a slide deck for reporting can be difficult. A quick search shows that there are no easy answers out there. Some people propose using screenshots, and other solutions are built for Looker, not Looker Studio. We built Slideform to pull nearly any kind of data into your reports, so you can focus on the work that matters most!

In this tutorial, I will show you how to automatically pull Looker Studio visuals into Google Slides & PowerPoint. You can easily generate multiple, custom reports from your dashboards in seconds.

4 simple steps to embed Looker Studio charts

1. Connect your Looker Studio dashboard to Slideform
   
2. Create a slide deck template
3. Match each Looker Studio visual to your template
4. Generate and save the output file

Step 1: Connect Looker Studio to Slideform

Slideform works by embedding specific pages from the dashboard into your slides. To embed each chart on a different slide, it is helpful to separate out individual charts and visuals onto separate dashboard pages. You can do this easily by copying the chart to a new dashboard page and resizing the page to fit your chart.

For my Looker Studio example, I'm using the pre-built Google Search Console dashboard. I created 3 additional pages in the dashboard for the charts I want to embed. Here is a view of page 3, which has a chart of impressions by device type. I will embed this page, containing one chart, into my report.

Start by logging into Slideform. Click Add Data Source and connect your Looker Studio dashboard. For each page in the dashboard, in Looker Studio go into Edit mode, in the File menu, choose Embed Report and copy the iFrame HTML. Enter the iFrame HTML in Slideform and provide a descriptive name for each chart.

Step 2: Create a slide template

Next, you need a template for your report. With Slideform, you can use your own custom-branded slide template in the format of your choice, PowerPoint or Google Slides. Just start with a previous version of the report and insert placeholders for any elements that will change between versions of the report, including text, numbers, images, charts, logos, and names. You can find a detailed explanation of the template in our help center. 

Here is my simple report template in PowerPoint with placeholders for charts from my Looker Studio dashboard. 

Placeholders are denoted by curly braces, and image or chart placeholders are contained inside PowerPoint shapes. All the colors, styling, fonts, and sizing of the elements in the template will be carried through to the slide deck output.

In Slideform, go to New Project to upload your slide template. I used a PowerPoint file, but you can also connect Google Slides. Give your project a name and connect it to the Looker Studio data source in the Data Sources tab at the top of the Project page. Remember to save your project!

Step 3: Match each visual from Looker Studio to the template

In Slideform, we need to match each placeholder in the slide template to the correct chart or other content that will fill it. Open the project for editing by clicking Configure Data on the project card. 

Each placeholder from the template is shown on a blue card. Let's look at the {{chart: ctr_metrics_slideform}} placeholder. We Preset a value and choose the data source, then choose the chart and set the anchor position. Now this pragma will always be filled by the latest version of this chart.

In my example template, I also have placeholders for some text, images, and page numbers. I can preset a value for most of these, or I can provide the information when I generate the report. I like to do this for my notes and takeaways, so I can fill them in after reviewing the data.

Step 4: Generate and save the output slide deck

Generate a PowerPoint file from your Looker Studio / Google Data Studio dashboard by clicking Generate on the project card. If you did not preset the values for all placeholders, you will be prompted to fill them in now. 

Next you will see a preview of your output slide deck. If everything looks right, you can save the file as PowerPoint or PDF, or even save to Google Slides. The download will appear on your Projects page.

Check out my Powerpoint output below. The styling, colors, fonts, and layout are preserved while the charts and images are filled in from my data sources.

Slideform is the solution to connect Looker Studio to your slide deck

Advantages of Slideform

• No screenshots! And no copying & pasting.
• Data (charts, graphs, numbers) automatically update when you generate a presentation.
• Combine Looker Studio with other data sources and content including spreadsheets, images, and text.
• Use your own custom slide template in the format of your choice.
• Generate output in PowerPoint, Google Slides, or PDF.

Get in touch today and try Slideform for free

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