Link multiple cells from Excel to Word without inserting line break

Question

I have a Word doc in which I'm inserting links to an Excel file. For single Excel cells I can use Paste Special>Paste Link>Unformatted Text to link to just the cell contents. However, sometimes I want to link multiple cells laid out as a table in Word.

If I copy the cell range I want and then use Paste>Link & Use Destination Styles or Paste>Link & Keep Source Formatting, a line break gets inserted above the table, which I do not want but can't get rid of as it's part of the linked field. If I use the unformatted text option, I lose the basic table layout. None of the Paste Special options seem to work for this.

The only workaround I can think of is to link as unformatted text each cell in the table individually, but with sometimes hundreds of cells, that's not really an option. Help! What can I do?

(One reason I am having trouble with the line break above is that I'm trying to use Insert Caption with the tables thus linked, but when I do, the resultant caption gets incorporated into the linked field, and so when I update fields, the caption disappears since it's not in Excel... workarounds for that would help too.)

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016.

[EDIT: Example here!] Word doc:

Linked Excel sheet (Cells A1:C3):

If I highlight some or all of the table and Update Link, the caption disappears:

And when my cursor is at the line break above the table, the table fields highlight as that line break is somehow considered part of the linked field:

Answer 1

I think you just need to add a space before the line break to make sure the caption is not within the linked field. Look at difference between the two example below:

• Cursor is now placed just before the line break. The values are highlighted, indicating that the linked field is selected:

• Now there's a space between the cursor and the line break. The values are not highlighted, so you can safely insert a captino here: