Let's quickly take a look at working with objects and cells in Excel.
On this invoice template that we took a look at in the previous lecture.
I have one object.
It's the picture or this logo sitting up here.
It's sitting on top of the cells.
These here are sitting inside the cells.
Anything that sits on top of a cell is considered an object.
So for example a chart sits on top of the cells.
It's seen as an object in Excel.
You can insert object so you can import any type of picture or logo you want by going to the Insert
tab and clicking on pictures.
You just have to find the picture from your directory click on it and then click on insert. That automatically
inserts that picture on top of the cells. So you can move it where you want, you can change its size by
just dragging the sides, and you get an additional tab in Excel called Picture format.
You might be familiar with some of these options.
If you've used PowerPoint or Word. You have the ability to add picture styles to this. If you hover over
these files you can see the end result. If you like one of them you can select them, you can add picture
border, add an effect, you can crop the picture or manually set its height and width if you want it to be very exact.
In addition to inserting pictures you can also insert shapes by selecting a shape
from here.
So let's say I want to add this star to it.
I just need to draw it out anywhere I want then I can move it where I want. This time I don't get that
picture format, I get shape format. Here I can decide on the shape fill, that's the color filling of the
object here and I can decide on the shape outline. If I don't want an outline so that's the border
around the shape. If I don't want it I can select no outline that takes away the border. If I wanted an
outline I select the color and I can adjust the weight of that outline. So I could make it as thick
as I want or I can add a dash line as the outline instead of a straight thick line. I have the ability
to rotate the image and again I can add some shape effects to this if I want. I can also add text to
this. Right mouse click here, edit text, type text on there.
Now that really depends on the shape and how much space you have inside the shape.
You can also add text boxes if you want your text to sit on top of the cell. If you don't want it
to be constrained to the cell size you can add a text box. And that's also in the Insert tab. You see
it directly sitting here. Text box, you can also find it under shapes. The first option here is the
text box so you just have to click on it and draw it out.
This gives you a chance to put a header as big as you want on top of your report.
So again this is an object that's sitting on top of the cells.
Now the only thing that you need to keep in mind when you work with objects is that because they are
sitting on top of the cells they can get stretched out.
If your cells get wider. But you can stop that if you want.
So there is a specific setting in the properties of these objects, right mouse click, and go to format shape.
Under the size and properties expand the properties option and select Don't move or size with
cells or move but don't size with cells.
So this makes sure that your objects don't get stretched.
In this case I'm going to select
Don't move or size with cells.
If I stretch this out this is not going to get stretched and even if I insert a new column here this
object is not going to shift.
The other option was move but don't size with cells which means that if I insert new columns here this
is going to move.
It's just that its size is not going to shift.
One other thing to point out when you work with shapes is that you can hide shapes from view.
So if I go to Find and Select and bring up these selection pane. I'm just going to drag it here, close
the other one. On the selection pane you can see all the objects that I have on this sheet.
So here is the text box seven that's this one, here is the star 5 points 6.
You can just click on it and change the name if you want.
Picture five.
And picture one.
Now let's say I wanted to print this but I don't want to see the logo when I print it.
I can click on this eye icon and this hides that picture from view.
So if I even click on this cell, I don't even realize that there is a picture there.
The only way to bring it back is to go back to the selection pane and click on the icon right here to
make it visible again.
Okay so that's it for now.
For objects versus cells, just keep these points in mind when you insert different types of Excel objects
in your worksheets.