Usage¶

Refractions adds a task pane to PowerPoint, Word, and Excel on Mac. Open any of these apps, look on the Home ribbon for the Refractions button, and click it to reveal the pane on the right side.

The pane works across all three Office hosts. What "scope" means depends on which one you're in:

Everything below applies to all three. Where the wording differs (slide vs document vs sheet), the task pane automatically labels itself for the host you're in.

Scan¶

When you open a file (or change slides / sheets), Refractions scans the current scope and lists each embedded Prism chart. Click any chart card to highlight the actual chart on the slide / page / sheet so you can confirm you've got the right one.

The crosshair icon on each card jumps to the chart in the document without committing — useful for browsing.

Edit an existing Prism chart¶

With a chart selected, click Edit in Prism. Refractions will:

1. Save your Office document.
2. Extract the embedded .pzfx to a private temp folder.
3. Pre-allocate the OLE container so future edits never overflow.
4. Open the file in GraphPad Prism.

The task pane changes to Prism is open — make your edits, then click Update. The button label adapts: "Update slide" in PowerPoint, "Update document" in Word, "Update sheet" in Excel.

Insert a new Prism chart¶

From the chart list, click Insert new Prism chart. Refractions:

1. Saves your Office document.
2. Creates a brand-new pre-allocated .pzfx from the bundled Prism template.
3. Opens it in Prism for you to populate.

When you click Update, the new chart gets embedded into the document at the current location (current slide / cursor position / active sheet cell) — same one-shot reinsert flow as editing.

Update¶

After editing (or filling in a fresh chart) in Prism, click Update. Refractions:

1. Asks Prism to save and close the document — Prism re-runs an embedded export script that produces a fresh PNG and updated .pzfx in one round trip.
2. Writes the updated .pzfx back into the OLE container.
3. Replaces the document's preview image with the new PNG.
4. Repacks the Office file in place.
5. Closes + reopens the Office document so the new preview appears immediately. (Optional — see the auto-refresh setting below.)

Auto-refresh and manual refresh¶

Office caches each chart's preview image in memory. After Refractions writes a new chart, Office still shows the old preview until something forces a reload. The cheapest trick is to close + reopen the file — that's what step 5 above does by default.

If you'd rather keep your cursor / selection / scroll position, open the gear icon in the task pane header and turn Auto-refresh after Update off:

• With auto-refresh on (default): every Update closes + reopens the doc. You see the new chart immediately.
• With auto-refresh off: Update writes the file but leaves Office alone. The task pane shows a Refresh document button (red) whenever a refresh is pending. Click it when you're ready. When everything's in sync, the same banner turns green and says "Document in sync".

Multiple charts in one document¶

You can edit one chart at a time. After clicking Update, the pane returns to the scan list and you can pick the next chart in the same slide / document / sheet — or navigate to another slide/sheet and Refractions will rescan automatically.

In Excel, the Sheet label updates as you switch between sheets so you always know which scope you're looking at.

Tips¶

• Save the Office file before scanning so Refractions reads the latest content.
• The file stays a real OLE-embedded .pzfx, so colleagues on Windows can still double-click any chart to edit it via Prism's native OLE handler.
• If you accidentally cancel an edit, your original chart is preserved exactly as it was.
• Outlook for Mac is not supported (it doesn't use the Office sideload mechanism). The other three hosts work identically.