OHSU's Software Forum

Bill Foust · Joined: 11 Apr 2008 Posts: 10

This sounded like a trivial trick or gimmick when I first saw it, but it turns out to be a way to categorize images by shape, which can be really helpful with visually separating, say, images from two different iterations of a study - say, diamond shapes for the first run, circles for the second, or whatever.

You can easily insert an image or picture within a shape in Excel 2007; here's how it works:

1. Create a shape in your worksheet, as normal (from the Insert tab of the ribbon, click on the dropdown arrow for Shapes, select the one you want, and click and drag on the worksheet to install it where you want it).

2. Right click on the image, and select Format Shape. Select the radio button for "Picture or texture fill". This brings up additional options for selecting a picture or image, and you can select from your own images by selecting "file". Navigate to the image you want and double click it.

3. You can do a bunch of other stuff with your image while you're in the Shape format dialog box - shadows, rotation and other options. Take a look at those options while you're there. Transparency is useful; allows you to put the image over something else without completely hiding it. Click on Close, and you're done.

Once the image is installed in your worksheet, you can move, delete, resize or edit as necessary just by dragging it or right clicking it.