Graphics in Headers or Footers

Perhaps one of the weakest features of Excel is the headers and footers. The method used for setting up headers and footers is sorely lacking, particularly when compared to other Microsoft Office applications. One example of this is if you want to insert a graphic in a header or footer. There is, unfortunately, no intrinsic way to do this in Excel.

There are a couple of workarounds for the situation, however. The first solution is appropriate if you want the graphic to appear in a header. Instead of using the regular header capabilities, you should delete any existing headers, insert the graphic in a cell in the first row of your spreadsheet, and then use the "Repeat Rows At Top" setting to print the row as if it were a header.

The other potential solution is to have your graphic converted to a font, and then you can insert the graphic in a header or footer to your heart's content. Conversion of graphics to a font is a service offered by several companies, each of which can be found on the Internet. This type of conversion is most often done with signatures, in which your signature is converted to a font so it can be easily used. This process can be applied to any other graphic, as well.

The only hope that Excel users have to permanently rectify this shortcoming is that perhaps a future version will include the desired graphics capability.