Here’s the situation: You have many pictures on a spreadsheet, how can you go to a specific picture quickly?

Selection and Visibility Pane is on the top of my mind…… but as you see from the above screenshot, you won’t succeed without the magic.

Before I show you the trick, let’s start with something basic.

When we insert an object, for example a picture, Excel gives a name to it as Picture 1, Picture 2, Picture 3 and so on…

As a good practice, we should assign a meaningful name to the picture rather than just Picture 1, Picture 2…

This can be easily done by inputting the name directly in the Name Box, or on the Selection and Visibility Pane, while the object is selected.

Note: To open the Selection and Visibility Pane, go to Home, Editing Group, Find & Select, Selection Pane…

Or simply use the shortcut Alt+F10

Now, I have inserted 10 pictures from Clip Art and named them accordingly.

I click on “Bear” on the Selection and Visibility Pane, the picture “Bear” on the worksheet is selected.

However, when I click on “Koala”, the picture “Koala” is selected but not displayed because “Koala” is not on the active view.  I have to scroll down to locate the “Koala” all by myself.  Quite disappointing!  

It may not be a big issue if I have only a few pictures sitting next to each other on my spreadsheet… But it could be a real frustration if we are dealing with a lot of pictures spreading all over the spreadsheet.

Show me the object (picture) I have selected, PLEASE!

Here’s the trick:

1. Click on the Object (in our example: Koala) on the Selection and Visibility Pane 
2. Press Down Arrow once (any arrow would do)
3. Press Ctrl+Z

There you go.

Note: I am using Excel 2010.  Not sure if that has been improved in Excel 2013 or 2016.  Please let me know if that’s the case.

EDIT (on Mar 5, 2022)

Just came across this video from Mr. Excel.  F2 does the trick.  Because of his video, I tried my trick using arrow keys again in Excel 365, but it didn’t work. The moral: Excel keeps evolving, we should keep learning. 😎