Slicers are one of my favorite feature in Excel. And here is a quick demo to show why they are my favorite.
Slicers – what are they?
Slicers are visual filters. Using a slicer, you can filter your data (or pivot table, pivot chart) by clicking on the type of data you want.
For example, let’s say you are looking at sales by customer profession in a pivot report. And you want to see how the sales are for a particular region. There are 2 options for you do drill down to an individual region level.
- Add region as report filter and filter for the region you want.
- Add a slicer on region and click on the region you want.
With a report filter (or any other filter), you will have to click several times to pick one store. With slicers, it is a matter of simple click.
See this demo:
Getting started with Slicers – Video
Here is a quick 5 minute video tutorial on Slicers. If are just getting started with this AWESOME feature, you must watch the video, NOW. See it below or head to my YouTube channel.
Download Slicer Examples Workbook
This post is very long and has many examples. Please click here to download slicer examples demo workbook. It contains all the examples shown in this post and a fun surprise too.
How to insert a slicer?
Note: Slicers are available only in Excel 2010 and above.
Adding a slicer in Excel 2010:
In Excel 2010, you can add a slicer only to pivot tables. To insert a slicer, go to either,
- Insert ribbon and click on Insert Slicer
- or Options ribbon (PivotTable Tools) and click on Insert Slicer
Adding a slicer in Excel 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / 365:
In Excel 2013 and above, you can add a slicer to either pivot tables or regular tables.
Adding slicers to regular tables:
When you add a slicer to regular Excel tables, they just act like auto-filters and filter your table data. To add a slicer to regular table, use Insert ribbon > Insert Slicer button.
Adding slicers to Pivot tables:
To add a slicer, you can do either of these things:
- Right click on pivot table field you want and choose “add as slicer”
- Use either analyze or insert ribbon to add the slicer.
Single vs. Multi-selection in Slicers
You can select a single item or multiple items in slicers. To multi-select,
- If the items you want are together, just drag from first item to last.
- If the items you want are not together, hold CTRL key and click on one at a time.
- You can also click on the “checkbox” icon in slicer header to multi-select items in slicers.
Creating interactive charts with slicers
Since slicers talk to Pivot tables, you can use them to create cool interactive charts in Excel. The basic process is like this:
- Set up a pivot table that gives you the data for your chart.
- Add slicer for interaction on any field (say slicer on customer’s region)
- Create a pivot chart (or even regular chart) from the pivot table data.
- Move slicer next to the chart and format everything to your taste.
- And your interactive chart is ready!
Demo of interactive chart using slicer:
Here is a quick demo.
Linking multiple slicers to same Pivot report
You can add any number of slicers to a pivot report. When you add multiple slicers, each of them plays a role in telling the pivot table what sub-set of data to use for calculating the numbers.
Linking one slicer to multiple pivot tables
You can also link a single slicer to any number of pivot reports. This allows us to build very powerful, cross-filtered & interactive reports using Excel.
To connect multiple pivot tables to single slicer, follow these steps.
- Optional: Give names to each of the pivot tables. To name the pivot tables, click anywhere in the pivot, go to Analyze ribbon and use the pivot table name field on top-left to give it a name.
- If you don’t name your pivot tables, Excel will give them default names like PivotTable73. This can be confusing once you have more than a few pivot tables.
- Right click on the slicer and go to Report Connections (in Excel 2010, this is called as PivotTable connections).
- Check all the pivot tables you want. Click ok.
Now both pivot tables will respond to the slicer. See this demo:
Linking slicers to more than one chart
You can use the same approach to link one slicer to more than one chart (pivot chart or regular one).
See this demo:
You can examine this chart in detail in the Slicer Examples workbook.
Capturing slicer selection using formulas
While slicers are amazing & fun, often you may want to use them outside pivot table framework. For example, you may want to use slicers to add interactivity to your charts or use them in your dashboard.
When you want to do something like that, you essentially want the slicers to talk to your formulas. To do this, we can use 2 approaches.
- Dummy (or harvester) pivot table route
- CUBE formulas route
Dummy pivot table route
This is the easiest way to capture slicer selection into a cell. Using a dummy pivot table, we can find out which items are selected in slicers and use them for some other purpose, like below:
The process is like this:
- Let’s say you want to know which profession is picked up in the slicer (so that you can use it in some formulas or charts).
- Create another pivot table.
- Add the profession field to row labels area.
- Link the slicer to this new pivot table as well (using report connections feature of slicer)
- Now when you click on the slicer, both original pivot and this new dummy pivot change.
- Access row labels like regular cells in your formulas to find out which slicer item is selected.
See this illustration to understand how to set up the formulas:
CUBE Formula approach:
This is relevant only if your slicers are hooked up to a data model thru something like Power Pivot, SAS Cubes or ThisWorkbookModel in Excel 2013 or above.
To find out slicer selection, we need to use CUBERANKEDMEMBER() Excel formula like this:
=CUBERANKEDMEMBER(“ThisWorkbookDataModel”, Name_of_the_slicer , item_number)
Let’s say you have a slicer on Area field, and its named Slicer_Area (you can check this name from Slicer properties)
To get the first item selected in the slicer, you can use CUBERANKEDMEMBER formule like this:
=CUBERANKEDMEMBER(“ThisWorkbookDataModel”, Slicer_Area, 1)
This will return the first item selected on slicer. If there is no selection (ie you have cleared the filter on slicer), the Excel will return “All”.
Bonus tip: You can use =CUBESETCOUNT(Slicer_Area) to count the number of items selected in slicer.
Bonus tip#2: By combining CUBESETCOUNT and CUBERANKEDMEMBER formulas, you can extract all the items selected in the slicer easily.
Please download Cube Formula Slicer Selection example workbook to learn more about this approach.
Note: this file works only in Excel 2013 or above.
Formatting slicers
Slicers are fully customizable. You can change their look, settings and colors easily using the slicer tools options ribbon.
Here is a quick FAQ on slicer formatting:
Q. I have too many items in slicer. How to deal with this problem?
Simple. See if you can set up your slicer in multiple columns. You can also adjust the height and width of slicer buttons to suit your requirements. If your slicer is still too big, you can adjust the font size of slicer by creating a new style.
Q. I don’t like the blue color of slicer. What do I do?
You can switch to another color scheme. Just go to Slicer Tools Options ribbon and pick a style you want.
Pro tip: You can create your own style to customize all aspects of a slicer.
Q. I don’t like the title on slicer. Can I get it rid of it?
Yes you can. Right click on the slicer and go to “Slicer Settings”. Uncheck display header option to remove the header & clear filter button.
Q. My slicer keeps showing old products (or categories etc.) that are no longer part of data after refresh. What do I do?
Simple. Right click on the slicer and choose “Slicer settings”. Check Hide items with no data option.
Q. I want to make my slicers look good. But I don’t know where to start…
Here is an inspiration for you.
Slicers vs. Report Filters
In a way slicers are like report filters, but way better. (Related: Introduction to Pivot Table Report Filters)
There are few key differences between both.
- Report filters are tied to single pivot tables. Slicers can be linked to any number of pivots.
- Report filters are clumsy to work with. Slicers are very easy to use.
- Report filters may not work very well in a touch screen environment. Slicers are great for touch screen UIs.
- Report filters take up one cell per filter. Slicers take up more space on the worksheet UI.
- Report filters can be automated with simple VBA. Slicers require a bit more code to automate.
- You can access report filter values using simple cell references. Slicer values can be extracted using either dummy pivot tables or CUBE formulas, both of which require extra effort.
Slicers vs. Timelines:
If you have a date field in your data, you can also insert a “timeline”. this is a special type of slicer, that works only with date values.
Here is a quick demo of Timeline slicer.
You can also customize the look & feel of Excel Timelines.
The download workbook has an example of timelines.
Slicers & Compatibility
Slicers are compatible with Excel 2010 & above versions of Excel. You can also use Slicers with Excel Online.
If you create a workbook in Excel 2010 (or above) with slicers and email it to a friend using Excel 2007, they will see an empty box where slicer should be.
Slicers work on desktop & web versions of Excel in the same way.
Download Slicer Examples Workbook
Please click here to download slicer examples demo workbook. It contains all the examples shown in this post and a fun surprise too.
Also download the Cube formulas approach for slicer selection extraction workbook to learn that technique.
Additional Resources to learn about Slicers
If you like slicers and want to learn creative ways to use them in your work, check out below examples:
- Create a fully dynamic dashboard using Pivot Tables & slicers
- Use slicer as scenario selection mechanism
- Slicers + charts for awesome user experience – case study & one more
- Related: Introduction to Excel Relationships & Data Model
- Related: Introduction to Excel Pivot Tables
- Related: Introduction to Excel Report Filters
- Related: Advanced Pivot Table Tips & Tricks
Do you use Slicers? What are your favorite tips about slicers?
As mentioned earlier, slicers are one of my favorite features of Excel. I use them liberally in my dashboards, charts & workbooks.
What about you? Do you use slicers? When do you use them? What are your favorite tips when it comes to using slicers? Please share in the comments area.
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