The Warped Graphics
When you insert a company logo, a chart, or a photograph into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, you spend time carefully positioning it. However, if you later adjust the width of the columns or the height of the rows underneath that image, Excel will automatically stretch, squash, or shrink the image to match the new dimensions of the cells. This default behavior assumes the image is directly tied to the data grid, resulting in horribly distorted graphics when you are simply trying to format your spreadsheet.
How to Lock Image Dimensions in Excel
To stop an image from stretching and warping when you move the cells around it, you must change the specific property settings of that exact image object.
1. Open your Excel spreadsheet and right-click on the image that is giving you trouble.
2. From the context menu that appears, select Size and Properties… (usually located near the very bottom of the list).
3. A new sidebar will slide out on the right side of your screen labelled “Format Picture.”
4. Look for the icon that looks like a small square with size arrows (this is the Size & Properties tab) and click it to ensure it is selected.
5. Click to expand the section labelled Properties.
6. You will see three radio button options. By default, Excel selects “Move and size with cells.”
7. Change this selection to Don’t move or size with cells.
Understanding the Options
The property options offer different levels of control depending on how you want your spreadsheet to behave:
- Move and size with cells: (Default) The image will stretch and squish if the columns beneath it are resized. If you delete the column, the image is deleted.
- Move but don’t size with cells: The image will slide left or right if you insert new columns, keeping its relative position to the data, but it will never stretch or distort its shape.
- Don’t move or size with cells: The image is completely locked to the physical screen coordinates. It ignores the cells entirely. You can delete, resize, or hide all the columns underneath it, and the image will remain exactly where it is, perfectly intact.
Select the option that best fits your formatting needs, and your graphics will stop automatically resizing.