How to Make Picture Background Transparent in Excel (2 Methods)

Get FREE Advanced Excel Exercises with Solutions!

To make an Excel worksheet dynamic, beautiful, and informative, it is sometimes necessary to insert a picture and make its background transparent. If you are looking for special tricks to make the picture background transparent in Excel, you’ve come to the right place. There are two ways to make the picture background transparent in Excel. This article will discuss every step of these methods to make the picture background transparent in Excel. Let’s follow the complete guide to learn all of this.

Table of Contents hide

Download Practice Workbook

2 Easy Methods to Make Picture Background Transparent in Excel

1. Using Context Menu

2. Utilizing Picture Transparency Option

Conclusion

Download Practice Workbook

Download this practice workbook to exercise while you are reading this article. It contains all the datasets in different spreadsheets for a clear understanding. Try yourself while you go through the step-by-step process.

Make Picture Background Transparent.xlsx

2 Easy Methods to Make Picture Background Transparent in Excel

In the following section, we will use two effective and tricky methods to make the picture background transparent in Excel. Using the context menu is the first method, and using picture transparency is the other method. In every method, first of all, we will insert a picture, then we will make the picture background transparent. To insert a picture, we can follow three methods such as using the Insert tab, using a drop-down list, and using shape fill. In this article, we demonstrate shape fill to insert a picture in Excel. This section provides extensive details on these methods. You should learn and apply these to improve your thinking capability and Excel knowledge. We use the Microsoft Office 365 version here, but you can utilize any other version according to your preference.

1. Using Context Menu

Here, we will demonstrate how to make a picture background transparent in Excel. Firstly, we will insert a picture in Excel. To accomplish this, we will use the Shape Fill which is a cool way to insert pictures in the cell. In this way, we can easily insert pictures and won’t have to adjust them manually to fit the cell size. Alternatively, you can insert pictures in Excel by using the Insert tab or drop-down menu. Then, we will use the shape format option to make the picture background transparent. Let’s walk through the steps to make a picture background transparent.

📌 Steps:

First of all, we have to insert a picture in Excel. To do this, go to the Insert tab and select Shapes from the Illustrations option.
Then, select Rectangle.

Therefore, we will be able to draw the shape in Excel as shown below.

Afterward, right-click on the shape.
Then, click on Format Shape.

Therefore, the Format Picture dialogue box will appear.
Next, select Fill & Line option, and click on Picture or texture fill.

To insert a picture you have to click on the Insert from Picture source option.

At this point, a dialogue box will pop up, you can choose pictures from your saved file or from online by these options. We have pictures on our computer so click on From a File.

Now, select the picture in the File name box and click on Insert.

You can see, that the image is automatically adjusted to the cell sizes as shown below.

The picture must now be placed over the dataset as shown below. Now, we are going to transparent the picture background.

To make transparent the picture background, select Transparency, and set the transparency to 80%. Depending on your picture type, you may want to increase or decrease this value.

As a consequence, you will be able to make the picture background transparent.

This is how you will be able to make the picture background transparent quickly by using the context menu. In the method, we will discuss another effective to do the same task by using the picture transparency option.

Similar Readings

2. Utilizing Picture Transparency Option

Now, we will demonstrate how to make a picture background transparent using the picture transparency option. Let’s begin by inserting a picture into Excel. This can be accomplished by inserting pictures in the cell using Shape Fill. Thus, pictures can be easily inserted without having to be adjusted manually. Depending on your preference, you can also insert pictures in Excel using the Insert tab or drop-down list. Then, we will use the picture transparency option to make the picture transparent. Let’s walk through the steps to make a picture background transparent.

📌 Steps:

First of all, we have to insert a picture in Excel. To do this, go to the Insert tab and select Shapes from the Illustrations option.
Then, select Rectangle.

Therefore, we will be able to draw the shape in Excel as shown below.

Afterward, right-click on the shape.
Then, click on Format Shape.

Therefore, the Format Picture dialogue box will appear.
Next, select Fill & Line option, and click on Picture or texture fill.

Now, to insert a picture you have to click on the Insert from Picture source option.

At this point, a dialogue box will pop up, you can choose pictures from your saved file or from online by these options. We have pictures on our computer so click on From a File.

Now, select the picture in the File name box and click on Insert.

You can see, that the image is automatically adjusted to the cell sizes as shown below.

The picture must now be placed over the dataset as shown below. Now, we are going to transparent the picture background.

Next, to make transparent the picture background, go to the Picture Format tab, select Transparency, and from the drop-down menu, select your desired format. Depending on your picture type, you may change your format.

As a consequence, you will be able to make the picture background transparent.

Conclusion

That’s the end of today’s session. I strongly believe that from now you may be able to make the picture background transparent in Excel. If you have any queries or recommendations, please share them in the comments section below.

Don’t forget to check our website Exceldemy.com for various Excel-related problems and solutions. Keep learning new methods and keep growing!