Insert images, charts, and tables

You can insert images, charts, and tables anywhere in a document. Images can come from your device or from Drive. Charts start with sample data you then edit. Tables start as a 3×3 grid and you can grow them from there.

Insert an image

On a wide screen

1. Place your cursor where you want the image to appear.
2. Click the Insert image button in the toolbar (the image icon with a plus symbol).
3. The Insert image dialog opens. Choose where to get the image from:
   • Click Upload from device to pick a file from your computer.
   • Or browse your Drive and click a file, then click Select.
4. The image appears in the document at the cursor position.

You can also drag an image file from your computer and drop it straight onto the document.

From the Insert menu

This works on any screen.

1. Place your cursor where you want the image.
2. Click Insert in the toolbar.
3. Choose Image.
4. The Insert image dialog opens. Choose Upload from device to pick a file, or browse Drive and click Select.

Paste an image

If you have an image on the clipboard (copied from another app or from elsewhere in the document), paste it with Ctrl+V (or ⌘V on Mac). The image is inserted at the cursor.

Resize and position an image

Click an image to select it. Resize handles appear at the edges. Drag a handle to change the width. The height adjusts to keep the proportions. To resize with the keyboard, select the image and hold Shift while you press an arrow key: Right or Up makes it wider, Left or Down makes it narrower. To place the cursor before or after an image that sits on its own line, click in the empty space to its left or right.

On a wide screen, selecting an image also opens the Image panel on the right side of the editor. From there you can:

• Width: type the image's width in centimeters and press Enter. The height follows, and the image stays between 2.6 cm and the width of the text (half of it for a floating image, the width of the paper for an image behind or in front of the text).
• Style: set the image to sit on its own line (the default), float to the left, or float to the right with text wrapping around it, or place it behind or in front of the text (see below). An image wider than half the text shrinks to half when it starts to float, so the text has room beside it.
• Align: when the image is on its own line, choose left, center, or right alignment.
• Alt: add alternative text, which is used by screen readers and shown if the image fails to load.
• Cap: add a caption that appears beneath the image. An image behind or in front of the text has no caption.
• Replace image: swap the image for a different file from your device or Drive, keeping the same position in the document.

Format → Image has Replace image and the same styles: In line, Wrap left, Wrap right, Behind text, and In front of text. It works on any screen, a phone included. The Image item is greyed out until you select an image.

Put an image behind or in front of the text

An image behind or in front of the text sits anywhere on the page you drag it to, and the text runs over it or under it, without making room.

1. Click the image to select it.
2. In the Image panel, click Behind text or In front of text under Style. Or choose Format → Image, then Behind text or In front of text.
3. Drag the image to where you want it. It stays on the paper, so you can drag it into the margins but not off the page.

The image stays where it was when you switch. It belongs to the paragraph it sits on, so it moves down when you type above that paragraph, and it goes when you delete the paragraph. Drop it over another paragraph to attach it there. Indenting its paragraph moves the image along with it.

To select an image in front of the text, click it. To select one behind the text, click a part of it that no text covers, or hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and click it. Once it's selected, you can drag it or its handles even where text covers it. On a phone, drag a selected image with your finger. A finger on an image that isn't selected scrolls the page, and an image fully under text can't be selected there.

An image behind or in front of the text can't be selected with the keyboard, and the arrow keys don't move it. With the image selected, Shift and an arrow key still resize it.

An image in a table, a footnote, or a header or footer can't go behind or in front of the text, so the Image panel and Format → Image don't offer it there. One you paste there sits on a line of its own. Drop an image behind or in front of the text over a table and it stays attached to the paragraph it was on.

In a PDF or a printout, an image near the end of a page can be cut off at the paper's edge, or left out, since it doesn't continue on the next page. An image whose paragraph runs over two pages prints on the first.

Download an image

Right-click an image and choose Download original image. You get the image file at its full size and in its own format. This works with view access too.

The same menu has Cut, Copy, and Delete for the image, and Add comment, to comment on the image itself. With view access it has Copy. See Comment and discuss.

Add a chart

1. Place your cursor where you want the chart.
2. Click Insert in the toolbar, choose Chart, then Bar, Column, Line, or Pie. A bar chart has horizontal bars, a column chart vertical ones.
3. The chart appears at the cursor with sample data, and stays selected.

Drag a handle to resize the chart. Its width and height change on their own, so you can make it wider without making it taller. While you drag, the size shows in centimeters.

On a wide screen, selecting a chart opens the Chart panel on the right side of the editor. It sets the Type, the Stacking of a bar or column chart (None, Standard or 100%), the Title, where the Legend goes, the Font of all the chart's text, each axis's Title and Show axis, the category axis's Reverse axis order, the Min, Max, and Gridlines of the axis with the numbers, and the color of each series, or of each slice of a pie chart. Min and Max pick their own values while they're empty and are percents on a 100% stack; switching Stacking to or from 100% empties them. A color reads Automatic until you pick one; Automatic in a picked color's list puts it back. Below them, Labels sets the Color of all the chart's text. Fill sets the chart's background, and its Style how the bars and slices are drawn: Solid, Hachure, Cross-hatch, or Zigzag. Solid bars and slices have no outline; hatched ones get an outline in their own color. Stroke sets the color, width, and style of the axes and gridlines, and the width of a line chart's lines, except in a chart imported from Office, which keeps its own, and Sketch how rough the chart looks, from Architect (clean) to Cartoonist. A new chart starts clean and solid, like a Google Docs chart. A chart with more than 200 values (for a pie, more than 200 slices) draws its bars, lines, and slices smooth and solid whatever the sketch, so it stays quick to show; the Sketch section says so.

Below those, Style and Align place the chart as they place an image, behind or in front of the text included, and Cap adds a caption beneath it, unless the chart is behind or in front of the text.

Edit the numbers

1. Double-click the chart, or click Edit data in the Chart panel.
2. The Edit data dialog shows the data as a small spreadsheet: categories down column A, series across row 1, and the category axis title in A1. Click a cell and type to replace it, or double-click it (or press F2) to change part of it. Press Enter to move down or Tab to move right. Escape cancels what you typed in a cell. A cell left empty leaves a gap in the chart.
3. Type in an empty row or column after the data to add a category or a series. To remove one, click its row number or column letter and press Delete. Delete on selected cells empties them.
4. Click Save to update the chart, or Cancel to leave it as it was.

You can paste cells copied from a spreadsheet or a table in a document into the grid, and copy cells out of it. A paste fills the grid from the selected cell, and the grid grows to fit. A chart holds up to 12 series, 200 categories, and 2,000 values; when a paste has more, the dialog says how much it pasted and leaves the rest out. Numbers may have thousands separators, a currency sign or a percent sign, as a spreadsheet shows them.

You can copy a chart from Sheets, Slides, or Vector and paste it into a document, where it stays a chart you can edit. A chart wider than the page shrinks to fit. Headers, footers, and footnotes don't take a chart pasted from another app. Copying a chart in a document and pasting it into Sheets, Slides, or Vector works the same way. A chart keeps its look wherever you paste it.

Right-click a chart and choose Download image to save it as an SVG picture on a white background, named after its title. This works with view access too. The same menu has Cut, Copy, and Delete, and with view access Copy.

A chart prints and downloads as a PDF or a web page in its look. In a Word file it is a Word chart with its numbers, kept the way Word keeps a chart's data. A sketched, hatched, or dashed look is drawn plain, and a gradient background becomes its middle color. See Export to Word, PDF, or HTML.

Insert a table

1. Place your cursor where you want the table.
2. Click Insert in the toolbar.
3. Choose Table. A 3×3 table with a header row is inserted straight away.

Edit a table

Click inside the table. The Table panel opens on the right side of the editor (on a wide screen).

The same actions are under Format → Table, which works on any screen, a phone included: Insert row above, Insert row below, Insert column left, Insert column right, Delete row, Delete column, Delete table, Distribute columns, Merge cells, Unmerge cells, Toggle header row, Cell background color, All borders, Outer borders, and No borders. The Table item is greyed out until your cursor is in a table.

Right-click a cell for the same actions in one menu. It starts with Cut, Copy, and Paste, offers Add comment when you have text selected, and ends with Delete row, Delete column, and Delete table in red. The first time you choose Paste, your browser may ask to let the page see your clipboard. This menu needs edit access, and works in a header or footer while you edit it.

Add or remove columns

Under Columns, click Before or After to add a column on either side of the one your cursor is in. Click Delete column to remove the current column.

Resize columns

Point at the border between two columns until the cursor changes, then drag it left or right. One column gets wider and the one beside it narrower, so the table keeps its width. To make the whole table wider or narrower, drag its right edge; it stops at the edge of the page's text, or of the list item or table cell it sits in. Dragging needs a mouse or trackpad; on a touchscreen the columns keep their widths.

Click Distribute columns under Columns to give every column the same width.

Add or remove rows

Under Rows, click Before or After to add a row above or below the current one. Click Delete row to remove the current row.

Merge and unmerge cells

Select two or more cells, then click Merge under Cells to join them into one. Click Unmerge to divide a merged cell back into its original cells.

Color cells

Select one or more cells, then click the Fill row under Cells and pick a color. Choose None to take the color away. Format → Table → Cell background color does the same.

Set cell borders

Select one or more cells, then use the Borders row under Cells:

• All draws every border of the selected cells.
• Outer draws a box around the selection, with no lines inside it.
• None takes every border of the selected cells away.

To change the color, click the Border row and pick a color. The borders of the selected cells take it, and All and Outer draw in it. Border reads Default while the cells have the standard gray borders. Choosing All after None brings the gray borders back. Format → Table has All borders, Outer borders, and No borders too.

A row or column you add takes the borders and the color of the one beside it.

Toggle the header row

Click Toggle header row to switch the first row between a styled header row and a normal row.

Delete the table

Click Delete table at the bottom of the Table panel to remove the entire table from the document.