Smile, You’re on Camera!

Charts are wonderful way of presenting data in a visual, easily grasped manner. As the old adage goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. The nitty-gritty details can be important at times, of course, and with a little help from a cool little Excel tool, you can have Both!

The Camera Tool
Though not shown by default in Excel, the Camera Tool can be highly useful when you are presenting a chart and would like to include a Resizable Image of the source data included within your graphical exhibit.

Just cruise on over to the Quick Access Toolbar in the upper-left of your worksheet, and from the small drop down button, click More Commands. Then scroll down to Camera and click Add.

Presto! The Camera Tool is on your Quick Access Toolbar.

Now Then, Here is How You Use this Magical Device:

1)  Select the data table of which you wish to "take a picture" and Click the Camera Icon on your toolbar

2)  Then, go to the area on the sheet on which you want the data to appear (probably a blank area on the chart), and Left-Click

3)  Bamm! You have an image of the table (Resize and Reposition if desired).

Now here comes the Really Cool Part! This is Not simply a Static Image of your source table. It is Dynamically Linked to the original table. Any updates or other changes you make in the original table will be instantly reflected in the new table you have placed on your chart.

The Camera Tool. Far Out!