The XLS/XLSX format is useful for processing data with Microsoft Excel. However, if someone wants to see the chart without the hassle of Excel, it’s best to convert it into a commonly used format like JPEG as virtually modern devices support the extension.
But how to convert a complex Excel chart into a simple plain image format? Taking a screenshot is one quick way, yet it’s not the most elegant solution. Instead, we are going to go through some of the best methods to save an Excel chart as an image.
The image would appear sharp, detailed, and most or all content from in the chart is covered. You may try each one of these methods to find the perfect way for your use case.
Table of Contents
#1 Using the Web Page method
We will essentially take advantage of the Web Page format in Microsoft Excel to convert charts into images. However, please note that some charts and diagrams are not necessarily transformed to image files with this method.
1. Prepare the Excel file.
2. Go to File.
3. Navigate to Save As and click Browse.
4. Under the ‘Save as type’, make sure you select Web Page. Then hit the Save button.
5. If you receive this notice, just click Yes.
6. Then locate the HTML file of the excel file. Open it with a browser.
7. After the page is loaded, right-click on a chart and click Save image as…
8. Select the download directory and click Save. Now you have the PNG version of the XLXS file.
As I outlined before, some charts and diagrams may not be converted into images. If that was the case, try a different method.
#2 Save to PDF first and convert it to an image
PDF is a universally-accepted format and there are plenty of free tools that convert a PDF file into something else, like JPEG for example. Microsoft Excel thankfully allows you to save an XLSX file as a PDF. This would make the process a lot quicker.
1. First, open the Excel file you want to convert.
2. Click File.
3. Select Save As, then click Browse.
4. Select PDF as the file type, and click Save.
5. Visit Smallpdf – PDF to JPG converter. Upload the PDF file.
6. Select Convert entire pages and hit Choose option. The conversion will be started.
7. Once finished, Download the file.
8. It’s stored in ZIP, so you need to extract it first. I’m using 7zip, but feel free to use anything else.
9. And the image file(s) is ready to use.
#3 Use Microsoft Word to save it as a picture
If you don’t want to rely on third-party services and prefer to work offline, then this is the best method. Microsoft Word lets us save a chart into a regular image format and we are going to utilize the feature.
1. Select the chart you want to convert.
2. Then go to Home > Copy.
3. Next, open a new document in Microsoft Word.
4. Navigate to Home > Paste > Paste Special…
5. Select Picture, generally, PNG and JPEG are preferable. Then click OK.
6. Now, right-click on the chart, and select Save as Picture…
7. Select the save directory and click Save to extract the chart as an image.
And that’s how to save Excel charts as images. There are actually many other methods that didn’t get into this article due to their level of complexity. But I how these methods are good enough for your work.
