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I'm trying to copy some Excel (Windows) to either Paint (Windows) or Preview (macOS). The Excel stuff (a simple bunch of cells in a rectangular block) has a black background. However, the result of the copy-pasting shows thin white lines on the left and top borders. What to do about it? (It is a repetitive operation, so manually cropping the white lines off is not an option.)

NB: It does not help to insert left/top black columns/rows. The result after selecting and copying the right area stays the same. As this happens when copying to different apps/OSs, this makes me think this is an Excel issue, that needs to be resolved somehow in Excel.

Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus Version 1708 (Build 8431.2107 Click-to-Run)

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  • Share a screen shot with us?
    – I say Reinstate Monica
    Oct 18, 2017 at 16:53
  • Which version of Excel?
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Oct 18, 2017 at 16:59
  • @DavidPostill Added version in question
    – Řídící
    Oct 18, 2017 at 17:07
  • How, specifically, are you performing this "copy"? Is it just Ctrl+C from Excel and Ctrl+V into Paint? How are you doing it with MacOS from Windows? Anyway, you can use a screen grabber tool like Snipping Tool (built into Windows) if you prefer to generate an image that way.
    – allquixotic
    Oct 18, 2017 at 17:11
  • @allquixotic Either Copy or Copy as Picture... same result. Windows to macOS through Parallels. Screen grabs etc. are not an option for consistency of repetition.
    – Řídící
    Oct 18, 2017 at 17:14

3 Answers 3

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Answering my own question. What I finally ended up doing is copying the block of cells, and pasting that as a linked picture in the same sheet. Then do a tiny bit of cropping. From there on always copy that picture (which automatically changes with the original block) to wherever I need it.

Added advantage is that I can blow up the size of the picture so that I can increase the number of pixels, giving me a great picture (font) resolution outside of Excel.

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  • This is a brilliant fix. I don't know whether I copied what you did or improved on it... I did (in macOS) copy and paste linked image like you said, but didn't have to do any cropping as the borders are "invisible" in PNG. Now when I need the updated picture I just right-click the linked image and "save as picture".
    – Daniel Widdis
    May 9, 2020 at 19:11
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I was able to duplicate the problem you are having. The only method that I found to copy a section without the white borders on the top and left is to use the Windows Snipping Tool and paste it into Paint.

To use the Snipping Tool, just hit the Windows Button and search for it. It is pre-installed on most machines.

Image showing before and after:

Image showing before and after

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  • Thanks for confirming the issue. The Snipping Tool is not a good solution, as I need to do this repeatedly (many, many times) and each copy needs to be of exactly the same dimensions/proportions.
    – Řídící
    Oct 18, 2017 at 18:19
  • Can you use a white background with black text in Excel? I found that if you turn off the grid, you can paste an Excel block into Paint with no borders showing if it is black text on a white background. I have an image tool that inverts the colors and I'd probably use that to convert it back to white text on a black background if I needed to.
    – Clif Sipe
    Oct 18, 2017 at 18:27
  • That is an interesting idea. But the text is multicolour. (Think of the Stocks app on an iPhone, if you happen to have one. Edit: actually not a perfect example, but you'll see my intention.)
    – Řídící
    Oct 18, 2017 at 18:33
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4 years later I've stumbled with this issue. It's not just with those colors. Any selection from Excel pasted as image will add a line to the top and another one to the left. I also have lots of images to fix in this way, but the fastest solution I've found is to use a software like Paint.Net, and resize the canvas by anchoring the image in the lower right corner and taking away just one pixel in both dimensions (width and height). Then save. It is cumbersome, but I am going to try to automate it using Power Automate to see if you can have a hot folder where every image you place there gets the treatment.

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