Inserting a Screen Clipping
November 14, 2023 - by Bill Jelen
Excel 2010 introduced the Screenshot icon on the Insert tab. If you open this dropdown, you will see a list of available windows that you can paste as a picture into the worksheet. Excel always pastes the entire window, including the title bar. You will then be using the Crop tool to remove all but the relevant portions of the window. Instead, I prefer to use Screen Clipping tool. This tool requires a bit more set up, but then it requires no post-screen-shot work. You might have several different applications open. You want to grab a picture from a web page. From Excel, switch to the browser session where you can see the image.
The Screen Clipping command works on the window that was active immediately before you switched to Excel. It is important that you switch directly from the browser back to Excel. If you use Alt+Tab to switch applications and you accidentally stop on the wrong application, that application will appear in the screen clipping.
When you are back in Excel, open the Screenshot dropdown on the Insert tab and choose the Screen Clipping item from the bottom of the dropdown.
Excel will show you a picture of the browser window. Wait a few seconds and the picture will be grayed out. The mouse cursor will change to crosshairs.
Drag a rectangle around the portion of the screen that you want to paste into Excel. As you drag, that portion of the screen will change from grayed out to full color.
When you finish the box, a picture of that screen will be pasted into the worksheet.
Gotcha: The Screen Clipping tool is great for shooting a screenshot of Word, or a web page, or a PDF file. It will not shoot a picture from the current Excel window. This seems like a frustrating limitation. To get a picture of the current Excel window, use the Copy as Picture or the Paste as Picture tools, as described in Paste a Live Picture of a Cell. Or, use the Windows Snipping Tool.
This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel
