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Steve991's avatar
Steve991
Copper Contributor
Oct 02, 2025

Excel Paste as Image Issue

Hello, apologies if this is not the best place to post this. Whenever I special paste, as a picture, it shows my selected excel cells as a tiny top left section of the whole pasted object. I then have to crop the “image” to only show the actual section of excel cells and remove the clear components. Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated as I havent had much luck finding this same problem online. I experience it whenever I paste from excel to powerpoint, excel to excel, or excel to powerpoint, but only as an image. Please let me know if this is not allowed on here!

 

excel

2 Replies

  • mathetes's avatar
    mathetes
    Silver Contributor
    Oct 04, 2025

    It's not altogether clear to me, from your description, exactly what the issue is. Nevertheless, let me offer the following as an addition to the suggestions from NikolinoDE​ :

    There are some key combinations that work  to get sections or whole screen images. For example, when I need to get an image of a section of an Excel spreadsheet, I use a key-combination to clip the image of the portion of the full screen that I want. That key combination is (on my Mac) Shift+Command+4. For example, I used it on a section of a spreadsheet that's been shared on this forum to get this image, a small corner of the overall spreadsheet.

    A Google search for key combinations to do various screen grabs yields different results for Windows vs Mac. Take your pick for what works.

  • NikolinoDE's avatar
    NikolinoDE
    Gold Contributor
    Oct 04, 2025

    When you Paste as Picture from Excel, instead of pasting just the visible cell range, Excel creates a large bounding box that covers the entire original sheet area (with your selected cells anchored at the top left). That’s why you always have to crop away the empty white/transparent region.

    This usually indicates a rendering bug or setting issue in Excel. Here are several fixes/workarounds you can try: 

     1. Use “Copy as Picture” instead of Paste Special → Picture

    • Select your cells.
    • Go to Home > Copy > drop-down > Copy as Picture…
    • In the dialog, choose:
    • As shown on screen
    • Picture
    • Paste into PowerPoint/Excel → this usually avoids the oversized bounding box problem.

     2. Disable hardware graphics acceleration

    Sometimes the oversized paste box comes from Excel’s graphics engine.

    • Go to File > Options > Advanced > Display
    • Check Disable hardware graphics acceleration
    • Restart Excel and test again.

     3. Paste using “Picture (Enhanced Metafile)”

    • Instead of “Picture (U)” or bitmap, try Picture (Enhanced Metafile) in Paste Special.
    • This usually creates a tighter bounding box around the selection.

     4. Try pasting into PowerPoint with “Keep Source Formatting”

    • In PowerPoint, instead of directly pasting as a picture, paste normally → then choose Paste Options > Picture. Sometimes PowerPoint crops better than Excel’s native paste.

     5. Update or Repair Office

    This is sometimes a known bug in certain Office 365 builds. If nothing works:

    • Run Office → Account → Update Options → Update Now.
    • If already updated, try a Quick Repair or Online Repair.

    The most reliable fix is using “Copy as Picture” (Home → Copy → Copy as Picture) instead of Paste Special → Picture. That should give you exactly the cropped range with no extra whitespace.

     

    My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!

    Hope this will help you.

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