Are you in need of adding a signature in your Google Sheets? Signatures serve as proof of authenticity for a document. With modern technology, people can now sign documents virtually, and many software programs offer this functionality, including Google Sheets. In this article, I’ll show you all the ways to add your signature to Google Sheets.
Add a Signature with Drawing
The first method is to use the “Scribble” tool to create a signature. You’ll find the “Scribble” tool in the drawing canvas. Let’s say you have an invoice template created in Google Sheets and you want to add a signature to it. Here’s how to go about it with a scribble.
- Go to the “Insert” menu.
- Click on “Drawing” from the drop-down options.
- In the drawing dialog box, click on the drop-down arrow next to the line icon and select “Scribble.”
- The mouse arrow becomes a dark cross. Use it to draw your signature.
- Once the drawing is done, click on the selection icon to change the mouse. Click and drag the mouse over the signature to highlight it, then place the mouse over the selection until it becomes a white cross. When you see the white cross, right-click and select “Group” from the options.
Without grouping the elements of the signature, each element of the signature will be treated individually since each one was created separately. This will make it difficult to make certain modifications to the drawing. By grouping the signature, you can easily modify elements like line thickness and line color.
For example, to change the line thickness, click on the “Line thickness” icon and choose “12px” from the options. If you want to change the color of the signature, simply click on the “Line color” icon and choose any color from the color palette. When you’re done with the modifications to the signature, click on the “Save and close” buttons.
After saving and closing the drawing, the signature gets transferred into the spreadsheet where you can easily drag and drop it to your preferred position.
Add a Signature with Image Insertion
This is a much simpler method for adding a signature in Google Sheets.
With this method, your signature needs to be in PNG or JPEG image format and stored on your local storage or your Google Drive account. From there, you can insert the signature image into your spreadsheet using the image insertion function.
You can insert a signature image from Google Drive by following these steps:
- Click on the “Insert” menu.
- Click on the “Image” option from the drop-down menu.
- Select the “Insert image in cell” option.
- In the “Insert an image” dialog box, select the “GOOGLE DRIVE” tab and find the document containing the signature you want to use.
- Click on “Insert” to add the image to the spreadsheet.
The “Insert image in cell” option places the inserted image inside a cell, while the “Insert image over cells” option inserts a floating image, similar to when you use the drawing method to create the signature.
💡 Tip: When creating an image file for your signature, make sure to use a PNG file with a transparent background. This allows the cell fill color and other background formats to be displayed when using the “Insert image over cells” option.
Add a Signature with the IMAGE Function
The IMAGE function allows you to add images inside a cell, just like in the previous method. With the IMAGE function, you can only add an image from a URL.
The IMAGE function has four arguments:
- URL: This is the location of the image’s website. The web address should be surrounded by quotation marks. This is the only required argument.
- [mode]: Used to control the specification of the image size using the numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4. Setting it to 1 resizes the image to fit the cell as much as possible while maintaining the aspect ratio of the image. Using 2 makes the image fit the entire cell without considering the aspect ratio, while 3 maintains the original size of the image even if it gets cropped. To use custom size settings, set the mode to 4.
- [height]: Used to set the height of the image when custom size settings are specified in the [mode] argument.
- [width]: Used to set the width of the image when custom size settings are specified in the [mode] argument.
To insert a signature using the IMAGE function, copy and paste this formula, replacing the URL with your own URL:
=IMAGE("https://updf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/copy-the-google-sheets-data.jpg")Conclusion
Adding a signature to your Google Sheets file can enhance user confidence in the data. With the scribble method, you can easily create a signature that looks handwritten. If you don’t have a steady hand, the IMAGE function or image insertion method are simpler alternatives that only require creating the signature once for reuse.
Have you already added a signature to your Google Sheets? How did you do it? Let me know in the comments below!
For more information on Google Sheets features, visit Crawlan.com.
