Excel 2019 Bible

Part I: Getting Started with Excel

displays a dialog box that lets you select an image to display as a background. Placing this

control among the other print-related commands is misleading. Background images placed

on a worksheet are never printed.

In lieu of a true background image, you can insert WordArt, a shape, or a picture on your worksheet and then adjust

its transparency. Then copy the image to all printed pages. Alternatively, you can insert an object in a page header or

footer. (See the sidebar “Inserting a Watermark.”)

Inserting a Watermark

A watermark is an image (or text) that appears on each printed page. A watermark can be a faint com-

pany logo or a word such as DRAFT. Excel doesn’t have an official command to print a watermark, but

you can add a watermark by inserting a picture in the page header or footer. Here’s how:

1. Locate an image on your hard drive that you want to use for the watermark.


2. Choose View ➪ Workbook Views ➪ Page Layout View.


3. Click the center section of the header.


4. Choose Header & Footer Tools ➪ Design ➪ Header & Footer Elements ➪ Picture. The
   Insert Pictures dialog box appears.


5. Click Browse and locate the image from step 1 (or locate a suitable image from other
   sources listed).


6. Click outside the header to see your image.


7. To center the image in the middle of the page, click the center section of the header
   and add some carriage returns before the &[Picture] code. You’ll need to experiment
   to determine the number of carriage returns required to push the image into the body of
   the document.


8. If you need to adjust the image (for example, make it lighter), click the center section
   of the header and then choose Header & Footer Tools ➪ Design ➪ Header & Footer
   Elements ➪ Format Picture. Use the Image controls in the Picture tab of the Format
   Picture dialog box to adjust the image. You may need to experiment with the settings
   to make sure that the worksheet text is legible.

The accompanying figure shows an example of a header image (a copyright symbol) used as a water-

mark. You can do a similar thing with text, but you don’t get the same formatting controls, such as

controlling the brightness and contrast.