Turning on Placeholders

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 11, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

1

If you are working with a large worksheet that has a large number of graphics, you may have noticed that Excel slows down quite a bit when displaying the graphics. This can be particularly distracting, especially if your graphics are quite detailed or are being loaded across a busy network connection.

You can speed up the display of your worksheet by using placeholders. This results in Excel displaying boxes where your graphics would normally appear. This means that Excel does not have to redisplay the complete graphic, and therefore your display will be much faster. To turn on placeholders, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. You will see the Options dialog box.
  2. Click on the View tab. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

  3. Use the Show Placeholders check box to control whether placeholders are used by Excel. Click on the check box to turn the capability on and off; a check in the box means placeholders are enabled.
  4. Click on OK.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2942) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting Footnotes Using Custom Footnote Marks

Automatic footnotes are easy to insert in Word documents. The default settings are usually fine for most projects. ...

Discover More

Selecting a Paper Size

Most of the time we print on whatever is a standard paper size for our area, such as letter size or A4 paper. However, ...

Discover More

Quickly Displaying the Font Dialog Box

Want to quickly format some text in your document? Select, right-click, and make a selection, and you can get to the ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Understanding Manual Calculation

When you make changes in a worksheet, Excel automatically recalculates everything that may be affected by that change. If ...

Discover More

Controlling the Display of Toolbars

The various toolbars available in Excel are indispensable when it comes to easily accomplishing tasks. Here is a concise ...

Discover More

Colors and Fonts for Worksheet Tabs

Changing the color used on a worksheet tab is easy. Just follow the three steps in this tip.

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is nine minus 5?

2020-05-24 23:36:22

bob

how about excel 2007?

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2026 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.