There are several ways to bring Excel Charts into Canva but which way is the right way? In this post I’ll walk you through the options and help you decide the best way for you.
So I had this question from an attendee of one of my data design webinars. “How do I bring Excel charts into Canva with a transparent background? I’ve tried copy and pasting but I end up with a white background.”
This is a pretty common problem, and it’s not just bringing charts into Canva but into other tools too. Luckily there is also a pretty common solution.
Why a simple Copy and Paste gives you an image with a white background.
So the easiest way to bring a chart from Excel into another program like Canva is to use Copy/Paste. Just select the chart and COPY (CTRL C), then open a Canva design and PASTE (CTRL V).
This will work, but two things will likely happen.
- You’ll have a white box behind the chart (meaning you won’t be able to see the background through your chart.
- You’ll probably also have a border around the box.
The first thing you should know though is that this isn’t really a Canva problem. It’s an Excel problem.
When you copy from Excel and paste into Canva, you’ll find a new image file in your Uploads tab. You’ll also notice that the image is a PNG, which is good. Because a PNG “can” give you a transparent background (a JPG will not).
Option 1: Giving Your Excel Chart a Transparent Background
Let’s go back to our chart in Excel.
We’ll select the chart and go into the format tab. Then select Shape Fill and then “No Fill.”
This will give us the transparent background. You can quickly see why this isn’t Excel’s default, because a transparent chart in front of the spreadsheet blends in a little too much with the sheet.
Another step you should take while you are here is to make the shape outline transparent as well by clicking on “No Outline.” Now this default setting I don’t get, it’s just annoying.
Now the Simple Copy Paste Works
Now that we’ve made the chart background go away it’s time to copy and paste again. The difference is that this time, the chart will have a transparent background and can be better placed within the Canva design.
Did you know that Canva has a backgrounds menu? If you don’t see it on the left panel menu click on the “More” button at the bottom. You’ll find bunches of abstracts, textures, gradients, and photos ready to become backgrounds.
Like this super cool Pineapple background.
Option 2: Saving your Excel Chart as an SVG
Okay, want to take the cool factor one step further?
Instead of copy and paste let’s save the chart as a picture in Excel.
And not just any picture, let’s set the type to Scalable Vector Graphics.
Then we’ll drop the newly created SVG chart into Canva.
In the uploads tab you won’t notice much of a difference between the transparent PNG and the SVG. But something has definitely changed.
If you put the SVG in your Canva design, you’ll notice that you can actually change the colors!!! (I’ve tested this a bunch, and it has its limits. But for basic Excel charts you’ll be able to adjust most if not all of the colors).
You can even use the eyedropper tool in the colors panel (the first one with the plus sign gives you the option). Now I can match my chart to the awesome pineapple background.
Option 3: Just Import the Excel Spreadsheet into Canva
This is a fairly new option given recent updates to Canva, at least new since the time I originally published this post.
You can drop an Excel spreadsheet directly into Canva and it will open. Or you can click, “Create Design” and choose “Import File.”
Keep in mind that you are importing a spreadsheet into a design program. The result might be far from perfect. My first attempt using a basic Excel charts spreadsheet ended up pulling the spreadsheets into multiple portrait oriented pages and splitting the charts.
If you plan to do this, check the print margins inside Excel before importing. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest is to just click print and see what the preview looks like. It won’t show you exactly how it will convert, but you can quickly see if there might be an issue.
I changed the print margins on my original spreadsheet, and switched it to landscape orientation. The end product still looks like a bit of a mess (the text box labels in particular came out strange) but it’s a mess we can work with.
The most important part is that the chart element is completely independent from the text. Meaning you can just redo the text boxes.
You might also notice that there are three colors up top. One for each of the bars, and the white for the chart background.
If you just have a solid color background, you don’t need to go back into Excel this time. Just change the white to the background color using the eye dropper tool.
