In Excel: use Insert ▸ Pictures ▸ This Device for a floating image, Insert ▸ Pictures ▸ Place in Cell in Microsoft 365 to put it inside the cell, or Page Layout ▸ Page Setup ▸ Header/Footer ▸ Custom Header ▸ Insert Picture for a logo that repeats on every printed page.
On this page7
Select the cell where the picture should land — with Place in Cell this is the cell it becomes part of.
On the Insert tab open Pictures and choose This Device, Stock Images or Online Pictures.
For a floating image, drag the corner handles to size it; hold Shift to keep the aspect ratio.
Right-click a floating image ▸ Size and Properties ▸ Properties and pick Move and size with cells if it should follow its row.
Select the image and use Picture Format ▸ Alt Text to describe it, then Compress Pictures to drop cropped areas and cut the file size.
For a logo on every printed page, go instead to Page Layout ▸ Page Setup (the dialog launcher) ▸ Header/Footer ▸ Custom Header, click the section, then the Insert Picture button, and size it with Format Picture — the Insert tab cannot put an image there.
What this does
Excel stores images three different ways, and the right one depends on where the picture has to appear. The classic route puts it on the drawing layer floating above the grid, anchored to whichever cell sits under its top-left corner. Place in Cell, added to Microsoft 365, makes the image a value inside the cell itself, so it moves when the row is sorted and can be produced by the IMAGE function from a URL. The third surface is the page header or footer, which is not on the sheet at all — it exists only on the printed page, and it is reached from Page Setup rather than from the Insert tab. Most people learn this as a sequence of clicks and forget it by next week; learning it as a pattern instead is what lets you apply it to the next, slightly different version of the problem without starting from scratch. That is the difference this page is trying to make. The difference between a quick fix and a sheet you can trust is the extra minute you spend validating “insert picture in excel”. Start on a copy or a tiny sample, keep the affected image visible, and compare the result with the outcome you expected before you touch the real workbook. When this is a ribbon command, the selection matters more than the button: confirm the range, apply the command, then spot-check the output before saving. The point is a layout choice that keeps the sheet readable and sortable, but the practical win is that someone else can open the file and understand what happened without asking you.
A worked example
A product sheet needs a thumbnail per row. Select C2, choose Insert ▸ Pictures ▸ Place in Cell ▸ This Device, pick the file, then set the row height to 60. Sorting the table by price now carries every thumbnail with its row. The formula route, =IMAGE("https://cdn.example.com/p/2291.png"), does the same from a link. Product photos, signatures and screenshots only stay useful if they travel with their data — a floating image that drifts out of alignment after one sort is worse than no image at all. A practical tip: try it on a copy of the sheet or a handful of sample rows first and check the result before you apply it to the real data. That one habit catches almost every surprise while it is still cheap to reverse.
In Google Sheets
This is a command rather than a formula, so there is no syntax to carry over. Google Sheets arranges its commands in menus across the top instead of a ribbon, names some of them differently and does not have every Excel command — look for the equivalent in the Sheets menus or its help before assuming the steps match. The aim was to get you unstuck fast and leave you a little more capable than a copy-paste would. The answer is at the top and the detail above shows why it holds — so the next time a colleague asks, you can answer without reaching for search. Treat “insert picture in excel” as a routine rather than a one-off. Once you know which setting or command controls it, the same few steps handle every workbook where it comes up in Excel, and you can explain them to a colleague in a sentence.
Common mistakes
- Setting a floating image to Don't move or size with cells and then sorting or filtering — the picture stays exactly where it was while its row moves away.
- Pasting phone-camera screenshots at full resolution; a dozen of them can add 50 MB to a workbook that Compress Pictures would have kept under 2 MB.
- Using Place in Cell in a file that colleagues open in Excel 2019, where the cell shows a placeholder instead of the image.
- Cropping a picture and assuming the hidden part is gone — it is still stored until you run Compress Pictures with "Delete cropped areas" ticked.
Frequently asked questions
How do I put a picture inside a cell rather than on top of it?
Insert ▸ Pictures ▸ Place in Cell (Microsoft 365), or write =IMAGE("url") in the cell. Both make the image a cell value that sorts and filters with the row.
Why does my image move when I insert rows?
Its anchoring is set to Move and size with cells. Right-click ▸ Size and Properties ▸ Properties and choose Don't move or size with cells to pin it.
Can I add a picture to a comment?
Yes, for legacy notes: right-click the note border ▸ Format Comment ▸ Colors and Lines ▸ Fill ▸ Fill Effects ▸ Picture. Threaded comments do not support it.
How do I insert a picture into an Excel header?
Page Layout ▸ the Page Setup dialog launcher ▸ Header/Footer ▸ Custom Header, click the left, centre or right section, then the Insert Picture button. Excel writes the &[Picture] code into the section; use Format Picture beside it to scale the logo down.
Is there a keyboard shortcut?
Alt, N, P opens the Pictures menu on Windows. There is no single-key shortcut.
Other ways people ask this
On the way here you may have searched this as “how do i insert a picture in excel”, “pictures insert excel”, “how do you insert a picture in excel” and “excel insert picture” — it is all the same task, and this page is the single, complete answer to it.
Why do people search for this in so many different ways?
Because the same task has many names. “how do i insert a picture in excel”, “pictures insert excel”, “how do you insert a picture in excel” all point at the one operation explained on this page, which is why they all lead here.