Add an image to a spreadsheet
last updated at: Sep 13, 2026
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
- Click the cell you want the image to start at.
- Open the Insert menu and click Insert image. Right-clicking a cell and choosing Insert image does the same thing.
- 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.
- 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.
To remove an image, select it and press Delete.
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. Tick Keep aspect ratio to keep the width and height in proportion while you resize, whether you drag a handle or type a number. Delete image removes the picture.
If the comments panel is open, it takes the same space. Close it to get the image panel back.
Images live in the spreadsheet itself. They are not included when you download it as Excel, PDF, or a web page, and they do not appear in the preview of the file in Drive. The grid and its values come through in full.