How to Insert Pictures Into Excel Cells
(& Make Them Fit)

I bet you know how to insert pictures but do you know how to insert a picture into a cell in Excel?

It’s a fairly simple, but quite unknown method that ultimately locks the image to a cell.

Let me show you how it’s done, step-by-step💡

If you want to tag along, download my Excel sample file here.

Table of Contents

How to insert a picture into a cell in Excel

Unlike with some other platforms, you simply can’t copy and paste a picture into an Excel cell.

But I assure you that the process to insert images isn’t difficult.

In fact, the image shown below took only 30 seconds to do.

Insert picture into Excel cell example

1. Go to the Insert tab.

2. Click the Illustrations button.

3. Select Picture and choose where the image should come from.

Typically, the image is located on your computer. If that’s the case, select ‘From this device’.

Insert picture from Insert tab

4. Select the images you want to insert.

Tip: You can insert multiple images at the same time.

5. Resize the image to fit the cell and make sure to move the picture into a cell.

Pretty easy, huh?

PRO TIP: KEEP ASPECT RATIO OF IMAGE

When you resize an image in Excel the aspect ratio can get out of hand really quickly, making it look ridiculous.

To keep the aspect ratio intact, make sure to resize it by dragging the handles at the corners of the image.

Don’t drag the handles to the top, bottom, left, or right.

Keep aspect ratio of picture in Excel

After resizing the images to fit the cells, there’s one problem left:

Resizing the columns or rows where the images reside does not affect the images.

Here’s what I mean:

Image not fit to cell example

To solve that, you have to lock the picture into a cell.

How to lock an image to a cell

For the image to resize when you resize the columns or rows, you will have to change its properties.

1. Right-click on the image and select ‘Format Picture’.

Select format picture

This will open the format picture pane where you can change the picture settings.

2. Click on the ‘Size and properties’ button.

3. Expand the ‘Properties’ tab and click ‘Move and size with cells’.

Format picture pane properties tab

And that’s how you lock a picture into a cell in Excel.

Now, when you resize the cell the image is automatically resized with the cell.

If you insert multiple images, you can select them all by holding down the Shift key while left-clicking each one.

Do this before enabling ‘Move and size with cells’ from the Properties tab in the ‘Format picture pane’ and it’ll be done to all the images at once.

Kasper Langmann, Microsoft Office Specialist

Awesome, right?👍

That’s it – What’s next?

As you can see, it’s pretty quick and easy to insert a picture into Excel cells.

The real challenge is making sure that the photo moves and resizes with the cell. Luckily, you can lock the picture into a cell to make that happen.

But to insert an image is only a small part of Microsoft Excel.

Excel can automate calculations, make decisions for you, speed up your daily work, and join data from multiple files in a few seconds.

If you want to get started with all that, you should enroll in my 30-minute free Excel training program that adapts to your Excel skill level.

Click here and sign up with your email address to get instant access to the course.

Other resources

Now that you’re inserting pictures into Excel cells, I got some other relevant resources for you.

Another way of displaying images in your Excel file is by showing them as watermarks. Read all about that here.

Also, if you care about the general look and feel of your spreadsheet, you need to know a few tricks like adding headers and footers, the format painter, and number formats.