Add an image to a spreadsheet

You can put a picture on top of a spreadsheet. It floats over the grid rather than living inside a cell, and you move and size it with the mouse or with the panel on the right.

Insert an image

1. Click the cell you want the image to start at.
2. Open the Insert menu and click Insert image. Right-clicking a cell and choosing Insert image does the same thing.
3. In the Insert image dialog, pick a picture from your Drive and click Select, or click Upload from device and choose a file from your computer.

The image appears at the top-left corner of the cell you selected, scaled down if needed to fit the part of the grid you can see. Sheets keeps its own copy with the spreadsheet, so changing or deleting the original in Drive later leaves the image here untouched.

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

Move, resize, and rotate

Click an image to select it. A frame with square handles appears around it.

• Drag the image to move it.
• Drag a corner or edge handle to resize it. A corner keeps the width and height in proportion; hold Shift while you drag to change them freely.
• Drag the round handle on the short stalk above the image to rotate it. Hold Shift while you drag to snap the angle to steps of 15 degrees.

On a phone or tablet, tap an image to select it, then drag it. Swiping across an image you haven't selected scrolls the sheet.

To remove an image, select it and press Delete. Press Esc to deselect it.

The image menu

Right-click an image, or press and hold it on a touch screen, for its menu:

• Cut and Copy put the image on the clipboard, and Cut removes it. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+X (Mac: ⌘C and ⌘X) do the same. Paste it here, in another spreadsheet, or in Docs, Slides or Vector.
• Duplicate puts a copy on top, a little down and to the right.
• Order brings the image in front of the images and charts it overlaps, or sends it behind them.
• Download original image saves the image file at its full size and in its own format. This works with view access too.
• Delete removes it.

Images and charts stack together. With an image selected, ⌘] brings it forward a step and ⌘[ sends it back a step, and adding Shift brings it to the front or sends it to the back. Use Ctrl in place of ⌘ on Windows.

The image panel

While an image is selected, a panel headed Image opens on the right of the editor. Under Transform it gives you five numbers:

• X and Y: the position of the image on the sheet.
• W and H: its width and height.
• Angle: its rotation in degrees.

Type a value in any of them to place or size the image exactly. Keep aspect ratio is ticked for an image, so the width and height stay in proportion while you resize, whether you drag a corner or type a number. Untick it to change them freely. The Arrange buttons move the image in front of or behind other images and charts.

If the comments panel is open, it takes the same space. Close it to get the image panel back. On a phone the image panel doesn't open.