Save Excel Chart as Image (High Resolution)

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We know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a chart is to data as a picture is to words.

They provide a great way to represent data and as such, are often used to convey relationships between data variables, make insights, and shape strategies.

We often need to share charts created in Excel, so that they can be used in reports, documents, PDFs or simply email or share on social media or websites.

So, you might sometimes need to save your Excel chart as an image, and then do what you like with it.

However, Excel does not come with a native image-exporting feature (at least as of now). So, if you want to save a file as an image, you’ll need to get a little creative.

Of course, you can always take a screenshot of the chart using tools like Snagit or the Windows Snipping tool.

But then chances are that you might end up with a lower resolution or pixelated image.

This is because the quality of your screenshot usually depends on the resolution of your screen.

There are other ways, though, in which you can save an Excel chart as a high-resolution image. In this tutorial we are going to show you 4 such ways:

  • By pasting it into MS Word or MS PowerPoint
  • By pasting in MS Paint
  • By saving as a PDF
  • By saving as a web page

How to Use MS Word or PowerPoint to Save an Excel Chart as an Image

Excel does not come with an option to save charts or any image for that matter.

However, both MS Word and PowerPoint have a ‘Save as Picture’ feature. The feature allows you to save any image as a png, jpg, gif, or bmp file.

Let us see first see how you can use MS Word to help you save your Excel chart as a high-resolution image:

  1. In Excel, copy your chart, either by right-clicking on it and clicking on Copy or by using the CTRL+C shortcut.
  2. Open a new file in MS Word and right-click on a blank area of the document.
  3. Under Paste Options, select the Picture option, as shown in the image below:
Click on Paste Picture option
  1. This will paste your chart as a picture in the word document.
Chart is pasted in the MS Word document
  1. Now right-click on this chart and select ‘Save as Picture’ from the context menu that appears.
Right-click on image and click on Save as Picture
  1. You should now see a File Save dialog box. Select the folder where you want to save your chart image file.
  2. Enter the name you want to give the image file in the box next to ‘File Name’.
Enter the file name
  1. From the drop-down next to ‘Save as Type’, select the type of file you want. We have chosen to save the image as a PNG file (Portable Network Graphics).
Select the File Type PNG for high resolution
  1. Click on Save.

Your chart should now get saved in your selected folder as a PNG file.

If you prefer using PowerPoint instead of MS Word, you don’t need to specify whether you want to paste it as an image or not.

You can simply follow these steps:

  1. In Excel, copy your chart, either by right-clicking on it and clicking on Copy or by using the CTRL+C shortcut.
  2. Open a new file in MS PowerPoint and paste the chart by pressing CTRL+V in a blank slide.
  3. Right-click on the chart image and select Save as Picture.
Click on Save as Picture
  1. This opens a File Save dialog box, from which you can select the folder in which you want to save your image file.
  2. Specify the name of the file in the box next to ‘File Name’.
  3. Select the file type from the dropdown list next to ‘Save as Type’. You will notice that PowerPoint gives you more file type options than Word, for example, there are options to save your image in TIFF and SVG formats too. Since TIFF files give you the highest resolution, we’ve chosen to save the image as a TIFF (Tag Image File Format) file this time.
Images saved in TIFF have highest resolution
  1. Click on Save.

Your chart will now get saved as a high-resolution TIFF file.

Also read: How to Separate Excel Tabs Into Separate Files

How to Use Paint to Save an Excel Chart as an Image

The Paint application is always available with every version of Windows.

So, if you don’t have any of the other Microsoft packages installed on your computer, you could simply use Paint.

Here are the steps to save your Excel chart as an image with the help of Paint:

  1. In Excel, copy your chart, either by right-clicking on it and clicking on Copy or by using the CTRL+C shortcut.
  2. Open Paint and paste the chart into a blank canvas by clicking on the Paste button from the toolbar or pressing the CTRL+V shortcut.
Copy and paste the chart in MS Paint
  1. Adjust the size of the chart if you need to.
  2. Crop out the edges so that the canvas exactly fits the size of your image. For this, click on the Crop icon from the toolbar.
Crop the edges of the chart if needed
  1. Click on the File button.
  2. Hover your mouse over the ‘Save as‘ option.
  3. You will see a sub-menu with different image file format options that you can choose from. Select the format in which you want to save your chart image.
Save the image as PNG
  1. If you don’t find the format option that you are looking for, click on ‘Other formats’.
Click on Other Formats to get more options
  1. This opens the Save as dialog box.
  2. Select the folder where you want to save the chart image.
  3. Insert the name of the file next to ‘File name’.
Enter teh file name
  1. From the drop-down list next to ‘Save as Type’, you can select or change the type of image file that you want to save your chart as. Notice that there are some additional file format options here, like HEIC and different types of Bitmap files. Select your required file type.
  2. Click on Save.

You should now have your chart saved as an image file in the format that you selected.

How to Save an Excel Chart as Image by Saving as a PDF

Another option is to save the chart directly from Excel as a PDF file. Since PDFs are basically ‘vector’ images, they usually have the best resolution.

Here are the steps to save your Excel chart as an image in a PDF file:

  1. Click on the blank area of the chart in Excel, to select it.
  2. Click on File.
Click on File
  1. Click on Save As from the list on the left.
Click on Save As option
  1. Select the folder where you want to save the PDF file with the chart image, or click on Browse.
  2. This opens the Save as dialog box.
  3. Type the name you want to give the PDF file in the box next to ‘File name’.
  4. From the dropdown box next to ‘Save as Type’, select the PDF option.
  5. You can check the box next to ‘Open file after publishing’, so that your PDF file opens as soon as it is done saving.
Enter chart name and select PDF as the file type
  1. Click on Save.

Your chart should now get saved as an image in a PDF file.

However, you will notice that the chart gets saved as an image on a blank page, and not as a standalone image.

Image is saved in a PDF

If you want to extract the image part from the PDF file, you will need to use other PDF or image processing applications like those from Adobe.

Also read: How to Save Selection in Excel as PDF (3 Easy Methods)

Save an Excel Chart as an Image by Saving it as a Web page

The methods covered above work great, but if you have a large Excel file with many charts that you want to save as an image, the above methods could be tedious (and error-prone as well).

In such a scenario, the best and quickest way to save your chart as an image is to save it as a web page.

It converts all the charts in the Excel workbook into images in one go.

Here are the steps to save your Excel chart(s) as image(s) by saving the entire Excel workbook as a web page:

  1. In Excel, once your charts are ready, click on File->Save As.
  2. Select the folder where you want to save the files for your webpage (including the chart images).
  3. This opens the Save as dialog box.
  4. In the box next to ‘File name’ type the name you want to give the folder that will contain all the files of your webpage.
  5. From the dropdown box next to ‘Save as Type’, select the ‘Web Page’ option.
  6. If you want to save the charts on all the sheets in the workbook, then check the radio button next to ‘Entire Workbook’. If you want the chart(s) on only the current spreadsheet instead, then check the radio button next to ‘Selection: Sheet’.
Save the Excel file as a Web page
  1. Click on Save.

This saves your spreadsheet (or workbook whichever option you had selected in step 6) as an HTML file and a folder.

When you open the folder, you should see all the charts of your spreadsheet/workbook as separate images files, in addition to other files, like an XML file, a CSS file, and HTML files for each sheet that you saved.

You will find two copies of each chart image – one high-resolution and one low-resolution.

This method is especially helpful and really quick if you intend to use the charts as images in a website, because the folder gets saved complete with all the files required to publish your webpage(s).

While this method is great, if you only need to save one or two specific charts as images, I still recommend you use the methods covered before this one (using MS Paint, Powerpoint, MS Word, and/or PDF)

In this tutorial, we showed you 4 ways to save an Excel chart as an image.

Among the 4 methods, we found the last method to be the quickest and most efficient as it lets you save multiple charts of an entire workbook into separate image files, without needing to use any additional applications.

We hope this tutorial has given you some quick tips to save and use your Excel charts for further processing or sharing.

Some Other Excel tutorials you may also like:

I am a huge fan of Microsoft Excel and love sharing my knowledge through articles and tutorials. I work as a business analyst and use Microsoft Excel extensively in my daily tasks. My aim is to help you unleash the full potential of Excel and become a data-slaying wizard yourself.

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