How can you add a watermark behind your spreadsheet? It is not obvious, but Episode 1151 shows you a couple of methods.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
Basically, you start out with massive amounts of data, and say “How we're going to analyze this?” Well, let's fire up a Pivot table and see if we can solve this problem!
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
And today's question sent in by Jacqueline from Springfield, Missouri.
Sounds like it should be an easy thing: how do you put a watermark behind your spreadsheet?
Unfortunately, it is not easy at all.
Well, you know, in 2007 they made it easy to come back here to the Page Layout tab, choose background, and then you can choose a picture, and that becomes the background for the spreadsheet.
Well, that's fine, except for what happens is, it doesn't print!
So you have something that doesn't print, that's not going to work at all.
Now, here's what Microsoft says to do, Microsoft says we want to add that to the header, so I'm going to come down here to Page Layout view where I can see the header.
We’ll up to the header, and in the header I'm going to insert a picture.
Alright, so I'll choose logo1, click Insert, and when we click out of the header, then you see that the logo becomes embedded behind the spreadsheet, and this is kind of cool.
If we go down so that we can see more pages, as soon as I add data to page 2 or to page 3, BAM, it adds the logo in.
So that's nice, because it's automatic, we don't have to worry about it, if I had data down here or here, you know, then we get that logo.
Now, you'll notice that the logo is always appearing here at the top.
So my solution to that is that we're going to come in and use either, you know, Paint or Photoshop if you have it, or something to add some white space at the top of that logo.
It's a little bit of a experimentation, as you try and figure out how much white space to add.
I'll come up here to header, I took my logo and did logo2 here, and you'll see that it, you know, kind of moved it down a little bit.
You're going to have to do some experimentation there to get it down into the center of the page where you want it.
The other way to go, and this is probably a good way if you have just a single, you know, section of data like this, and you want to add a background behind that, this is the trick that I use all the time.
You insert, and then go to Shapes, and I'm going to draw a rectangle, I'm going to hold down the Alt key to make sure that rectangle exactly fills these cells, alright, covered up the data.
Instead, we'll go to Shape Fill, Picture, and we'll choose the picture, click Insert.
Still covering up the cells, now, here's the important thing.
We're going to go to Format Cells, Ctrl+1, and here on the Fill tab there is a new setting.
This is there in 2003 that controls the transparency, ah, check that out!
So now we can still see our data, the picture’s back there as a watermark.
Let's get rid of the lines, so under Line Color, No Line, click close, and now we have a simple watermark behind our data.
Now, if I add more pages, I'm going to have to keep adding that picture.
So it's not as convenient as this method, but I have a lot more control over the transparency and the size and shape of that watermark there.
So, want to thank Jacqueline for sending in that great question, sounded really easy, not easy at all, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
Well thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
Basically, you start out with massive amounts of data, and say “How we're going to analyze this?” Well, let's fire up a Pivot table and see if we can solve this problem!
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast, I'm Bill Jelen.
And today's question sent in by Jacqueline from Springfield, Missouri.
Sounds like it should be an easy thing: how do you put a watermark behind your spreadsheet?
Unfortunately, it is not easy at all.
Well, you know, in 2007 they made it easy to come back here to the Page Layout tab, choose background, and then you can choose a picture, and that becomes the background for the spreadsheet.
Well, that's fine, except for what happens is, it doesn't print!
So you have something that doesn't print, that's not going to work at all.
Now, here's what Microsoft says to do, Microsoft says we want to add that to the header, so I'm going to come down here to Page Layout view where I can see the header.
We’ll up to the header, and in the header I'm going to insert a picture.
Alright, so I'll choose logo1, click Insert, and when we click out of the header, then you see that the logo becomes embedded behind the spreadsheet, and this is kind of cool.
If we go down so that we can see more pages, as soon as I add data to page 2 or to page 3, BAM, it adds the logo in.
So that's nice, because it's automatic, we don't have to worry about it, if I had data down here or here, you know, then we get that logo.
Now, you'll notice that the logo is always appearing here at the top.
So my solution to that is that we're going to come in and use either, you know, Paint or Photoshop if you have it, or something to add some white space at the top of that logo.
It's a little bit of a experimentation, as you try and figure out how much white space to add.
I'll come up here to header, I took my logo and did logo2 here, and you'll see that it, you know, kind of moved it down a little bit.
You're going to have to do some experimentation there to get it down into the center of the page where you want it.
The other way to go, and this is probably a good way if you have just a single, you know, section of data like this, and you want to add a background behind that, this is the trick that I use all the time.
You insert, and then go to Shapes, and I'm going to draw a rectangle, I'm going to hold down the Alt key to make sure that rectangle exactly fills these cells, alright, covered up the data.
Instead, we'll go to Shape Fill, Picture, and we'll choose the picture, click Insert.
Still covering up the cells, now, here's the important thing.
We're going to go to Format Cells, Ctrl+1, and here on the Fill tab there is a new setting.
This is there in 2003 that controls the transparency, ah, check that out!
So now we can still see our data, the picture’s back there as a watermark.
Let's get rid of the lines, so under Line Color, No Line, click close, and now we have a simple watermark behind our data.
Now, if I add more pages, I'm going to have to keep adding that picture.
So it's not as convenient as this method, but I have a lot more control over the transparency and the size and shape of that watermark there.
So, want to thank Jacqueline for sending in that great question, sounded really easy, not easy at all, I want to thank you for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
Well thanks for stopping by, we'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel!
