Capturing an Image from Excel

[xuangxing]

I was recently asked by a Forum member to explain:-
i. How to post a spreadsheet image?
ii. How to create an image (jpeg?) out of a spreadsheet format?

Question (i) which involves the same procedure whatever the source or format of the image has been addressed in the following thread in this forum:

How to add an image?? <-- Doesn't seem to work anymore
How to add an image?? <-- Use this link

What follows is my attempt to address Question (ii) in this particular thread.

Procedure for creating a jpeg image from a spreadsheet format

Several commercially available programs such as Adobe Photoshop are capable of capturing images of the output of a program (e.g. Microsoft Excel) that is running and save the captured images in image file formats (e.g. jpeg).

For our purposes, I am assuming that we do not have the privilege of access to such full featured (but expensive?) programs. We are going to improvise by making use of:-
i. An inbuilt feature of Windows i.e. copying to clipboard. The clipboard is a temporary storage in the Windows memory which can only hold ONE item at a time.
ii. Another program, Paint, which comes packaged with Windows.

I am going to explain the procedure for creating a jpeg image from a spreadsheet by stepping through the process of creating the image I used in my posting of January 21, 2009 in the Chen/Tan/Chan/Chin (陈/陳) Clan thread.


The explanatory steps are written based on the Windows XP environment. Switching from one program to another is achieved by clicking the relevant program tab of the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. To maximize the size of the captured image, in my posting I have removed the Tool Box and the Color Box by un-ticking the corresponding items after selecting View from the menu. I have only stepped through the procedure for merging two portions of the image although the image I posted required more portions than that. Just repeat the procedure to merge all other portions remembering to prepare Paint for a larger image by increasing the Height attribute as per Step 18. It must be borne in mind that a near perfect merged image can only be achieved through painstaking trial and error!

Step 1. First of all open up the spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel. Press Ctrl-Home to ensure that the display shows the beginning of the spreadsheet. Next press Print Screen to copy the whole screen display to the clipboard – Screenshot 01.


Screenshot 01


Step 2. Next, open Paint (or the application where you would like to paste the image). Paste the image – Screenshot 02.


Screenshot 02


Step 3. The image should appear in your Paint program – Screenshot 03.


Screenshot 03


Step 4. Hold down the Left-Click button and drag the mouse to centralise the pasted image on the screen. Release the Left-Click button when done – Screenshot 04. Press the Esc button.


Screenshot 04


Step 5. Bring the cursor to the top left hand corner of Cell A1, hold down the Left-Click button and drag the mouse down and towards the right, releasing the button once the the desired area is selected. Screenshot 5 shows the cursor being dragged.


Screenshot 05


Step 6. Select Edit from menu, choose Copy To – Screenshot 6.


Screenshot 06


Step 7. Save the partial image as type 256 Color Bitmap (*.bmp,*.dib) by giving it a name such as Chart – Part 01 – Screenshot 7.


Screenshot 07


Step 8. Next, prepare to capture the next image by selecting File from menu and choosing New – Screenshot 8. If prompted Save changes to untitled?, click No.


Screenshot 08


Step 9. The Paint program is now ready for a new captured image – Screenshot 09.


Screenshot 09


Step 10. Switch to the Excel program and press Page Down. Next press Print Screen to copy the whole screen display to the clipboard – Screenshot 10.


Screenshot 10


Step 11. Switch to the Paint and paste the new image as in Step 2 and centralise the image as in Step 4. Press the Esc button.


Screenshot 11


Step 12. Bring the cursor to the top left hand corner of Cell A28, hold down the Left-Click button and drag the mouse down and towards the right, releasing the button once the desired area is selected. Screenshot 12 shows the cursor being dragged.


Screenshot 12


Step 13. Select Edit from menu, choose Copy To – Screenshot 13.


Screenshot 13


Step 14. Save the partial image as type 256 Color Bitmap (*.bmp,*.dib) by giving it a name such as Chart – Part 02 – Screenshot 14.


Screenshot 14


Step 15. We now have two partial image files - Chart – Part 01.bmp and Chart – Part 02.bmp. We will now join the two files to form one image file. Select File from menu, choose Open – Screenshot 15.


Screenshot 15


Step 16. Open file Chart – Part 01.bmp. If prompted Save changes to untitled?, click No.


Screenshot 16


Step 17. The Paint program shows the first saved image- Screenshot 17.


Screenshot 17


Step 18. Prepare Paint for a larger image by selecting Image from menu and choosing Attributes. Then increase the height of the current image by changing the Height attribute to the desired height. In our example it is changed to 1225 from the previous 612 – Screenshot 18.


Screenshot 18


Step 19. Prepare for inserting the next image by scrolling down the screen so that a blank white space is seen below the existing image – Screenshot 19.


Screenshot 19


Step 20. Select Edit from menu and choose Paste From – Screenshot 20.


Screenshot 20


Step 21. Select file Chart – Part 02.bmp as the file to Paste From – Screenshot 21.


Screenshot 21


Step 22. The screen now displays the second image overlaying and hiding the first image – Screenshot 22.


Screenshot 22


Step 23. Bring the cursor near the top of the image, hold down the Left-Click button and drag the mouse down until the second image completely slides out to expose the first image - Screenshot 23. Still holding down the Left-Click button, slowly slide the mouse back and forth until the two images merge perfectly to form a single image – Screenshot 24. Press the Esc button.



Screenshot 23


Step 24. Save the merged image file by selecting File and choosing Save As – Screenshot 24.


Screenshot 24


Step 25. Save the merged image as type JPEG (*.JPEG,*.JPG,*.JPE,*.JFIF) by giving it a name such as Chart – Screenshot 25.


Screenshot 25


Step 26. Screenshot 26 shows the saved merged final Chart.jpg.


Screenshot 26

[Ah Gin]

xuangxing: If only all software instructions are written like this! You are truly another Sifu.

Regards, Ah Gin

[helen]

But my problem is trying to print out what I can see. I only get page 1.. nothing else.

[xuangxing]

Hi Helen,

Gong Xi Fa Cai and Xin Nian Kuai Le. My apologies for not responding to your post earlier. I do not know how much importance New Zealand Chinese attach to the Chinese New Year, but here in Malaysia, Chinese New Year is a major festive event celebrated by most Chinese. Malaysian Chinese generally embark on a major ‘spring cleaning’ activity prior to the New Year and do a lot of shopping for new clothes, shoes and other traditional items such as mandarin oranges, lanterns, etc. Those who live out of town will make it a point to rush back home (read as cross country travel) for the reunion dinner. I was no different, I was involved in some spring cleaning and had disconnected my PC in the process and thus had no access to the internet for a couple of days.

Referring to your problem of being able to print ONLY the first page of the image, again I have to address it from the point of my own experience. To print the image I used in my posting of January 21, 2009 (see Image 1), I would need to download the image to my PC.

Image 1

Once the image is downloaded, open it with the Paint program, select File from menu and choose Page Setup. Under Scaling section, click Fit to_ by _ page(s) and change the settings according to the requirements of the image to be printed. In our case, I changed the settings to Fit to 1 by 4 page(s) – (see Image 2).

Image 2

With the Page Setup setting thus changed, the image in my posting of January 21, 2009 can now be printed in four sheets of A4 paper – see Image 3.

Image 3

I hope I have sufficiently addressed your problem.