Snapshot-pictures in Excel
Posted by Theo Heselmans on August 6th, 2007
As of version 3 of Excel (we're now at version 12 !), a feature was introduced that's not only unappreciated, but hard to find too.
It's called Camera. Customize your toolbar and add the little camera icon to it.
- in Excel 2003:
- in Excel 2007:
Here's how it works:
- First select part of the screen you are interested in:
- Click the Camera icon. Your cursor changes into a crosshair.
- Then go to another sheet or to a different part of the sheet, and select with the crosshair cursor the top-left corner of the location were you want the snapshot to appear:
So changing something (values, formatting, ...) in the original, changes it in the picture too ! Even changing column or row widths adapt the size of the picture.
I use this feature mostly for bringing together info from multiple sheet into a sort of 'overview' sheet.
BTW: resizing the picture will not increase the selection range, but will effectively stretch the picture:
Let me know if you think this is useful.
Category: Microsoft Excel | 
Technorati: Microsoft, Excel
Comments (4)
Wow, never knew that! Does it work outside of Excel? i.e. can you snapshot from excel into word or powerpoint / whatever? Or save the snapshot as a jpeg/whatever?
No, you can't take it out of that Excel document. There is however another image-taking option, which you can use (but has NO live link):
Select the range you want to take a picture of, then hold your shift key, and select 'Copy Picture' from the Edit menu.
Give it a try.
star. will do. thanks.
you can actually drag and drop the snapshot into word...i did it just then. i don't know if this breaks the connection in regards to it updating itself according to the original. i'm using office 2003 by the way