Once you start using Excel to develop systems, budget, forecast and large tables of data you may come across the dilemma of “How do I know this is right” or “How do I truth check this”.
This post, Huis second, will add a tool to your arsenal to help you out.
The technique below allows for the rapid visual evaluation of 12 or more days/months/years of data via a chart of 2 variables and the ratio between them, utilising 2 sliders to rapidly change input variables.
DATA
Typically all businesses deal in 3 types of numbers, ie: Dates or Times, Physicals and Dollars.
Dates may include Times, Days, Weeks, Months, Years or any periods in between
Physicals directly relate to the business you are in but may include inputs and or outputs: eg: metal, tyres and cars, sugar, flour and cakes or whatever your business makes, strangely Physicals may also include Dollars, if you’re in the financial services sector. People are a Physical.
And Dollars which could be revenue, costs, cashflows or profit types of numbers.
I have found one of the best methods of looking at large tables of data is to look at a key input or output physical and then interactively scroll through the cost or income and calculate a ratio between the two.
I am going to use as an example a budget which has 40 rows of data including Physicals and Costs. But you will see that the techniques here can easily be extended to hundreds of rows. You can download this file here: Bobs Homes
The technique below allows rapid visual evaluation of 12 or more months data a chart of 2 variables and the ratio between them.
Using 2 sliders the user can rapidly move between variables and evaluate the variance over a given time frame against another variable.
The technique involves the charting of 3 ranges which in turn will be controlled by 2 sliders.
The first Range and slider will allow the selection of a Physical.
The second Range and slider will allow the selection of the Cost/Income component.
The third range will be the ratio of these, but specifically cost or income per physical.
I have attached a workbook, Bobs Homes, which contains 2 models, an example model for you to practice the following techniques on and a completed model which you can examine and pull apart to see how it works.
Load the model and scroll around and see what data is available. You will notice a time scale across the top with Physicals and Dollars down the left side. The Physicals and Dollars are grouped into common areas like inputs, outputs and costs, income and profit.
You will also note that there are 10 blank rows at the top of the worksheet. I do this so that I can perform simple calculations, charts or other workings without upsetting the data and other calculations below and for macro’s which automatically find the bottom of the data I know there is nothing below my data to upset the calculations.
Let’s jump in
SETUP
We’re going to add the following components
Headings
A2: Physical
A3: Cost/Revenue
A4: Ratio
E1: =E12
and copy across to Q1
Data
C2: 1
C3: 1
D2: =CONCATENATE(OFFSET(B$13,$C$2,0),OFFSET(C$13,$C$2,0))
D3: =CONCATENATE(OFFSET(B$22,$C$3,0),OFFSET(C$22,$C$3,0))
D4: =CONCATENATE(D3,”/”,D2)
E2: =OFFSET(E$13,$C$2,0)
E3: =OFFSET(E$22,$C$3,0)/1000
Copy E2:E4 across to Q2:Q4
Chart
Select Area D1:Q4
Insert Chart, Line Chart with or without markers to your liking
Suggestion – Place the Chart between the Data and the new Headings and formulas you have just added
Adjust the Legend to be at the Bottom of the chart
Sliders
Insert 2 Sliders
Developer Tab, Insert Scroll Bar (Form Control)
If you don’t have the Developer Tab, Have a read of: http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/05/26/excel-2007-productivity-tips/
Position the scroll bars so they are vertically next to the Chart, Use Alt whilst dragging to snap to Cell corners or edges
Link the sliders to the lookup cells
Slider 1
Current value: 1
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 7 (This is the number of Rows of Physicals data)
Incremental Change: 1
Page Change: 0
Cell Link: $C$2
Slider 2
Current value: 1
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 19 (This is the number of Rows of Cost/Revenue data)
Incremental Change: 1
Page Change: 0 (set this to maybe 10 if you have more than 30/40 rows)
Cell Link: $C$3
FINAL MODEL
You can now select a Physical by dragging the Left Scroll bar
You can now select a Revenue/Cost by dragging the Right Scroll bar
The Ratio of Cost/Revenue to the Physical is calculated and the 3 are all charted
Examine the model and see what variances in inputs/outputs can be seen.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
The Formula in E2:Q3, are extracting the physicals and Cost/revenue data from the main body of the report by simply using an Offset function from the top of the Physicals and Cost/Revenue area.
The Distance they offset is retrieved from the control Cells C2:C3
The labels for the Physicals and Costs/Revenues are also retrieved using 2 Offsets inside a Concatenate. This is done to allow Heading Rows and Sub Headings to be displayed and joined if available from 2 separate columns.
The Chart is a simple Line Chart which is charting the 3 Data Rows (E2:Q4) against the Time Period (E1:Q1) at the top of the work area.
You can customise the chart to your content.
The 2 sliders control the control Cells C2:C3, and allow for interactive selection of Physicals and costs.
In use often you will find that one of the Physicals, Costs/Revenue or Ratio is generally much smaller in scale than the other 2 measures. Generally it is a good idea to plot the odd scale against a secondary Y axis.
Select the series line, Right Click and select Format Data Series
FUNCTIONS USED:
Offset: http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/11/19/vlookup-match-and-offset-explained-in-plain-english-spreadcheats/
Concatenate: http://chandoo.org/excel-formulas/concatenate.html
How do you truth check your data? Let us all know in the comments below:
How are you finding the content level of my posts? Let me know in the comments below:
38 Responses to “Time to showoff your VBA skills – Help me fix ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert snafu”
I tried your code with 2003, it works.
But, I know Addpicture does not take URLs anymore with 2007 onwards, perhaps its the same with picture.insert as well.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928983/en-us
The above link gives the solution as "picture fill in a shape such as a rectangle".
Tried to recreate this, but it worked fine for me. I just took the image of the error you showed in the post. Is there more info that can narrow this down a bit?
Don't know if this helps?
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=47101
Hi
Not sure if this is what you're after, but I just tried this
Sub Macro1()
ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif").Select
End Sub
Tied a button to it on the sheet and it seems to work; hope this helps a little
Ian
@All.. the issue is in Excel 2007. In 2003 ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert seems to work fine. Unfortunately, I have design this in Excel 2007.. that is why I posted it here..
v2
Sub Macro1()
Set n = ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif")
With Range("c12")
t = .Top
l = .Left
End With
With n
.Top = t
.Left = l
End With
End Sub
Ian
That didn't come out very well. This positions at c12, so can change easily:
Sub Macro1()
Set n = ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/images/logo.gif")
With Range("c12")
t = .Top
l = .Left
End With
With n
.Top = t
.Left = l
End With
End Sub
Works OK in 2007
Ian
The above codes work fines to my EXCEL 2007. Thanks.
Chandoo:
Try 'ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert'
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert("C:\Example.png")
.Left = ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Left
.Top = ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Top
End With
activesheet.pictures.insert "C:\Documents and Settings\Jon Peltier\Desktop\2007 stuff\insert_charts_2007.png"
Works for me in 2003 SP3 and in 2007 SP2.
Check the URL, and make sure you have internet connectivity.
What also works, and is newer (pictures.insert was supposedly deprecated in '97):
activesheet.shapes.addpicture "C:\Documents and Settings\Jon Peltier\Desktop\2007 stuff\insert_charts_2007.png", false, true, 200,200,100,100
Unfortunately you must specify dimensions (the last four arguments) and you don't necessarily know them. But the picture size is still related back to the original picture size, so you could use scaleheight and scalewidth to fix this.
Chandoo: I just re-read your post.
The code I posted works for me. However, I'm using a local picture. If you try to add a picture from the web, this won't work.
I remember solving this problem before by adding a rectangle shape first, then using the Shapes.AddPicture method to get a picture from the web.
I'll find that code and post it here.
Some more updates... The code "ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert (path)" works fine in Excel 2007 at home. Strange it failed miserably on my work laptop. Do you think this has got something to do with SP2 of MS Office 2007 or something like that?
@Ian, Jon: Thanks for the code snippets. I guess I will use my home installation of excel to do this.
Chandoo:
Try this on your work laptop:
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50, 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
End Sub
FYI:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928983/en-us
I didn't mean to post code with a local file, because both approaches worked with an internet image as well. This is in Excel 2007 SP2.
activesheet.pictures.insert "http://peltiertech.com/images/2009-07/col_area_noblanks.png"
Jon: Looks like I have SP1 on my client machine! I wasn't paying attention.
Just checked my home computer where I have SP2, and you're right...looks like they fixed it.
I didn't even bother testing in SP1, though I could if anyone cares enough.
I'm afraid I don't have a solution, but I find it remarkable that after attaining a certain status in the Excel world, Chandoo does not need to post on an Excel discussion forum to get help for an Excel problem. Instead, he posts on his blog and all the gurus come rushing to his help.
Isn't Web 2.0 great?
Teylyn - I saw Chandoo's tweet first, and followed the link back to his blog.
@Mike.. thank you. I have seen the fill rectangle solution before posting the query here. For that matter, I have also tried the solution of embedding a browser control on a spreadsheet. both of these seemed a bit extreme. That is why I have asked it here.
But I guess I will end up using it if I had to build this in work laptop.
@Teylyn: I have thought of posting this in a forum. (Unfortunately I have not been to any excel group in the last 5 years. Last time I was active was when I built a jave based excel sheet construction solution using POI.HSSF classes of Apache... ) After searching for a few hours, I found several forum posts where others had same problem and the solution recommended (using .left and .top parameters) is not working for me. Incidentally most of these solutions are from a certain Jon Peltier 😛
I thought may be the problem is interesting for fellow blog readers. So I posted it here.
Hi,
Adapting the code in the question,
[code]
Sub InsPicture()
pPath = "http://chandoo.org/images/pointy-haired-dilbert-excel-charts-tips.png"
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath)
.Left = Range("a1").Left
.Top = Range("a1").Top
End With
End Sub
[/code]
Seems to work fine
Looks like it was a problem in 2007 up to SP1, which was corrected in SP2.
@Jon.. seems like the case. I just checked the version at work laptop. it is 12.0.6331.5000 (SP1).
Thank you so much every one. I really appreciate your time and suggestions in solving this.
Glad to help. I couldn't understand why something so straightforward wasn't working.
Hi All
Is there a way of inserting a motion clip eg animated gif or swf or flv?
Thks
You can insert animated GIFs by inserting them in a browser control through VBA. For other types of movies, I can guess you can insert them as clip art.
I WANT THE INSERT PICTURE BY USING COADING
so currently i was struggling same as you, chandoo, with the insert picture method in excel 2007/10 from an url and came along your thread here.
so i re-designed the code on the addshape method as mike was suggesting it and all of the sudden it works just fine.
thanks alot to you guys, you were a great help
a big salut from switzerland
Hi guys,
I need help copying and pasting an image with the path in a cell.
I leave the code.
And thank you very much!
Sub Copiarimg()
Dim pic As Picture
With ActiveSheet
Set pic = .Pictures.Insert(Range("f2").Value)
With .Range("e9:g22")
pic.Top = .Top
pic.Left = .Left
pic.Width = .Width
pic.Height = .Height
End With
End Sub
I've played around with the approaches in these comments, and the code below is what I've come up with. The ImagePath can be a local file or a URL. As Jon mentioned above, the trick is to set an arbitrary value for the width and height, then call the ScaleWidth and ScaleHeight methods afterward to reset the picture to its original size. Once the LockAspectRatio property is set, you can change the picture width and the height will automatically scale (or vice-versa).
Sub AddPictureToRange(TopLeftCellAddress As String, ImagePath As String)
Dim pic As Shape
Dim l As Single, t As Single
Dim temp As Single
l = Me.Range(TopLeftCellAddress).Left
t = Me.Range(TopLeftCellAddress).Top
temp = 10# ' arbitrary value
Set pic = Me.Shapes.AddPicture(ImagePath, msoFalse, msoTrue, l, t, temp, temp)
pic.ScaleHeight 1#, msoTrue
pic.ScaleWidth 1#, msoTrue
pic.LockAspectRatio = msoTrue
End Sub
I need some help with inserting pictures. I have an excel file with a column of item numbers next to this row I want to insert a picture of this item. The pictures are coded with the item number so I tried to insert it with one of the codes above:
Sub InsPicture()
pPath = "http://img.bricklink.com/P/80/55236.gif"
With ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath)
End With
End Sub
That worked but I need to do that for every row separtly.
So I tried in the code
pPath = "http://img.bricklink.com/P/80/"&Text(a1;"#")&".gif"
But that gives errors.
Anybody ideas?
Hi Nicholas, I used your solution in a related problem in Excel 2003 and it worked flawlessly..thank you!
Hi Mike Alexander,
Your solution with some changes was helpful in my problem in XL 2007, thanks.
Hi,
thanks all. In addition, I had a problem with multiple pictures inserting (every new picture replaced the prior one). I've changed it a bit, may be helpful..
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50 , 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Copy
ActiveSheet.Paste
End Sub
Try this instead:
Sub test()
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle, 50 , 50, 100, 200
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture _
"http://www.datapigtechnologies.com/images/dpwithPig6.png"
End Sub
Thanks to everyone, this thread has been very helpful. However, image inserting still doesn't work quite as expect for me.
While I can get a picture inserted into an Excel 2010 worksheet using either:
1) ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture...
2) ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath), and
3) Shapes.AddPicture...
unfortunately the images all insert with a display size determined not by the actual pixel dimensions of the image but by the dpi resolution.
So for example, if I insert two copies of the exact same 600x600 pixel image, one with a 300dpi resolution and the other with 72dpi, they display at vastly different sizes on screen.
While this might be intended behaviour for Excel in order to maintain a WSYWIG printing layout, I actually need a way to insert the image based on the the actual pixel dimesnsions and ignoring the dpi resolution.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Kez
Not doing an intentional bump, but realised I posted in rely to one of the repsonses here instead of to the main thread, so reposting.
=====
Thanks to everyone, this thread has been very helpful. However, image inserting still doesn’t work quite as expected for me.
While I can get a picture inserted into an Excel 2010 worksheet using any of the below methods:
1) ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture....
2) ActiveSheet.Pictures.Insert(pPath), and
3) Shapes.AddPicture....
unfortunately the images all insert with a display size determined not by the actual pixel dimensions of the image but by the dpi resolution.
So for example, if I insert two copies of the exact same 600×600 pixel image, one with a 300dpi resolution and the other with 72dpi, they display at vastly different sizes in Excel on screen.
While this might be intended behaviour for Excel in order to maintain a WYSIWYG printing layout, I actually need a way to insert the images based on the the actual pixel dimesnsions and ignoring the dpi resolution.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Kez
Well, answered my own question 🙂
For those who might be interested, you can use this function:
Public Function GetPicDims(strFilePath As String, strFileName As String) As String
GetPicDims = CreateObject("Shell.Application").Namespace((strFilePath)). _
ParseName(strFileName).ExtendedProperty("Dimensions")
End Function
to get the dimensions of the image you want to insert. Then you can parse the return string and use the width and height values to add a rectangle shape of the appropraite size, like:
ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape msoShapeRectangle 50, 50, iWidth, iHeight
which you then fill with the picture:
ActiveSheet.Shapes(ActiveSheet.Shapes.Count).Fill.UserPicture "c:\temp\test.jpg"
This way the picture gets inserted using the pixel dimensions and the (print) resolution gets ignored.
If desired, the GetPicDims function can be made more generic to get other ExtendedProperties.
Regards
Kez