Taking a Picture

Excel provides a nifty little tool that allows you to create a picture from a range of cells, from a chart, or from another object in your worksheet. Follow these steps if you are using Excel 2010 or a later version of the program:

1. Select the cells or other object you want a picture of. (If you select cells, they must be contiguous.)
2. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
3. Click the down arrow to the right of the Copy tool in the Clipboard group. Excel displays a list of options.
4. Click Copy as Picture. Excel displays the Copy Picture dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Copy Picture dialog box.

5. In the top part of the dialog box, specify what you want in the picture.
6. In the bottom part of the dialog box, specify how you want the graphic saved.
7. Click OK.

If you are using Excel 2007, the steps are very slightly different:

1. Select the cells or other object you want a picture of. (If you select cells, they must be contiguous.)
2. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
3. Click the down arrow under the Paste tool in the Clipboard group. Excel displays a list of options.
4. Click As Picture to display a submenu.
5. Click Copy as Picture. Excel displays the Copy Picture dialog box.
6. In the top part of the dialog box, specify what you want in the picture.
7. In the bottom part of the dialog box, specify how you want the graphic saved.
8. Click OK.

The result is that you now have a graphic in the Clipboard—either a metapicture or a bitmap, depending on your choice in the bottom portion of the dialog box—that you can paste anywhere. Paste it in another workbook, paste it in an e-mail, paste it in a graphics program, or paste it in a Word document. You can paste it just about anywhere because it is no longer an Excel object, but an actual graphic.

You should know that if you choose "As Shown On Screen" in the Copy Picture dialog box, that doesn't mean that Excel copies the picture exactly as shown. The copied picture will always be at a 100% zoom magnification, regardless of what zoom setting you are using. Thus, if you are viewing your worksheet at 150% zoom, take a picture of some cells, and then paste the picture back into the workbook, it will look smaller than the rest of your workbook because of how the picture is captured.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6240) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Taking a Picture.