Welcome Rocky!
I haven't used excel, powerpoint or tried to use with Word either. But I have heard of people having problems importing from Excel into Inkscape. I don't remember specifically what the problems were though.
There are some math type of programs that people have used successfully with Inkscape, although I can't think of their names at the moment. And there used to be some nice extensions (
LaTex and
TexText) which no longer work with the current version of Inkscape. (These would be used to write math formulas.) You could use the previous Inkscape version, and make use of those, for a one or two time basis (although for long term, it's probably better to stay with the current version). But I don't think they would be called "plots". There are some extensions for making charts, but that's probably not what you need either.
Oh, and there's Extensions menu > Render > Function Plotter and in the same submenu > Parametric Curves. In both of those, you can enter the math formulas, and Inkscape will draw out the line/curve. This is what I think of, when I think of "plots".
I probably can't be much help, but it might help those who have the right knowledge, to know more clearly what you want to do. I'm trying to imagine "plots" in "columns" and coming up with something that seems odd. It seems to me like the answer would be to import the plots, and use Word or Inkscape to type the text. Then you have full control over the text. But there's a good chance I'm not seeing the problem correctly.
Could you show us examples? Once we understand clearly what you're doing, we can guide you more effectively
