How to Control the Overlap of Graphic Objects in Excel 2013
In case you haven’t noticed, graphic objects in Excel 2013 float on top of the cells of the worksheet and may need some controlling. Most of the objects are opaque, meaning that they hide information in the cells beneath.
If you move one opaque graphic so that it overlaps part of another, the one on top hides the one below, just as putting one sheet of paper partially on top of another hides some of the information on the one below. Most of the time, you should make sure that graphic objects don’t overlap one another or overlap cells with worksheet information that you want to display.
How to reorder the layering of graphic objects
When graphic objects (including charts, text boxes, inserted clip art and pictures, drawn shapes, and SmartArt graphics) overlap each other, you can change how they overlay each other by sending the objects back or forward so that they reside on different (invisible) layers.
Excel 2013 enables you to move a selected graphic object to a new layer in one of two ways:
To move the selected object up toward or to the top layer, select the Bring Forward or Bring to Front option on the Bring Forward button’s drop-down menu in the Arrange group on object’s Drawing, Pictures, or SmartArt Tools contextual tab.
To move the selected object down toward or to the bottom layer, select the Send Backward or Send to Back option on the Send Backward button’s drop-down menu in the Arrange group on object’s Drawing, Pictures, or SmartArt Tools contextual tab.
Click the Selection Pane command button in the Arrange group on the Format tab under the Drawing Tools, Pictures Tools, or SmartArt Tools contextual tab to display the Selection task pane. Click the Bring Forward button or Send Backward button at the top to the immediate right of the Show All and Hide All buttons. Click until the selected graphic object appears on the desired layer.
Here you have a combination of downloaded clip art, web picture, and screenshot graphic, along with a drawn graphic object on the same worksheet but on different layers. As you can see in the Selection task pane, the Tablet PC clip art image is on the topmost layer so that it would obscure any of the other three graphic objects on layers below that it happens to overlap.
Next comes the picture of the Microsoft Surface Tablet on the second graphics layer so it obscures part of the drawn Explosion Graphic and the Mouse Properties dialog box screenshot graphic that ware placed on the third and fourth graphics layers, respectively. To move these graphic objects to a new layer, you have only to select them in the Selection pane followed by the Bring Forward or Send Backward buttons.
How to group graphic objects
Sometimes you may find that you need to group several graphic objects so that they act as one unit. That way, you can move these objects or size them in one operation.
To group objects, Ctrl+click each object you want to group to select them all. Next, click the Group Objects button in the Arrange group on the Format tab under the appropriate Tools and then click Group on its drop-down menu.
After grouping several graphic objects, whenever you click any part of the mega-object, every part is selected (and selection handles appear only around the perimeter of the combined object).
If you need to independently move or size grouped objects, you can ungroup them by right-clicking an object and then choosing Group→Ungroup on the object’s shortcut menu or by clicking Group→Ungroup on the Format tab under the appropriate Tools contextual tabs.
How to hide graphic objects
The Selection task pane enables you to change the layering of various graphic objects in the worksheet, and to control whether they are hidden or displayed. To open the Selection task pane, select one of the graphic objects on the worksheet and then click the Format button under the respective Tools contextual tab. Click the Selection Pane button found in the Arrange group of the object’s Format tab.
After you open the Selection task pane, you can temporarily hide any of the graphic objects listed by clicking its eye check box. To remove the display of all the charts and graphics in the worksheet, click the Hide All button at the top task pane instead.
To redisplay a hidden graphic object, simply click its empty eye check box to put the eye icon back into it. To redisplay all graphic objects after hiding them all, click the Show All button at the top of the task pane.
If you hide all the charts and graphics in a worksheet by clicking the Hide All button and then close the Selection task pane by clicking its Close button, you’ll have no way of redisplaying this task pane so that you can bring back their display by clicking the Show All button.
That’s because you have no visible graphic objects left to select in the worksheet and, therefore, no way to get the contextual tabs with their Selection Pane buttons to appear on the Ribbon.
In this dire case, the only way to get the Selection task pane to appear so that you can click the Show All button is to create a dummy graphic object in the worksheet. Then click the Selection Pane button on the Format tab of its Drawing Tools contextual tab.
With the Selection task pane open, click the Show All button to bring back the display of all the charts and graphics you want to keep. Get rid of the still-selected dummy graphic object by pressing the Delete key.

Excel Glossary
active cell
The worksheet cell that contains the cell cursor. Each worksheet can have only one active cell.

Excel Glossary
AutoComplete
A feature that looks at the entries that you make in a worksheet column and automatically duplicates them in subsequent rows whenever you start a new entry that begins with the same letter or letters as an existing entry in that column.

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AutoCorrect
A feature that alerts Excel 2007 to common typing errors and your own typing errors (that you specify) and tells the program how it should automatically fix them for you.

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AutoFill
An Excel 2007 feature that quickly creates a series of entries based on the data you enter in one or two cells. AutoFill works with days of the week, months of the year, yearly quarters; consecutive series of numbers; and formulas. You also can add your own custom AutoFill series.

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AutoFilter
A feature in Excel 2010 that enables you to temporarily hide everything in a table except the records you specifically want to view, based on criteria you specify.

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Backstage view
A new feature in Excel 2010 — accessible from the green File tab — that enables you to manage files and to view the properties and stats about the workbook file you're editing.

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cell
The intersection of a column and row in the worksheet.

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cell address
The cell identifier, determined by its column letter(s) followed by the row number, as in cell A1, the very first cell of each worksheet at the intersection of column A and row 1.

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cell cursor
The black border that surrounds the active cell in a worksheet.

Excel Glossary
clip art
Readymade drawings, illustrations, and photos offered by Microsoft for use in Microsoft Office applications.

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Compatibility Checker
A utility in Excel 2007 and 2010 that you use to find potential compatibility issues if you plan to save an Excel workbook file in the older Excel 97–2003 file format.

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current cell
The worksheet cell that contains the cell cursor. Each worksheet can have only one current cell.

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data table
A range of cells in a worksheet in which you enter a series of possible values that Excel plugs into a formula so you can perform what-if analysis on the data.

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dialog box
A rectangular window with settings and commands that appears when you click a dialog box launcher or certain other commands on the Ribbon.

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dialog box launcher
A small icon in the lower-right corner of a group of command buttons on the Ribbon that you click to access a dialog box with additional related settings and commands.

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function
A part of a formula that takes a number of specific arguments and then returns a single value based on those arguments.

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gallery
A drop-down list of thumbnail selections that appears when you click certain command buttons on the Ribbon.

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group
A section of a tab on the Excel 2007 Ribbon that organizes related command buttons into subtasks normally performed as part of the tab's larger core task. The name of a group appears at the bottom of the group, such as the Font group on the Home tab.

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hyperlink
Specially formatted text that anyone can click to jump to Web sites, move to other cells or workbooks, or create an e-mail message.

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keyboard shortcuts
A combination of keys that you can press to execute certain commands, as opposed to finding and clicking the commands' buttons on the Ribbon or elsewhere.

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Live Preview
A feature in Excel 2007 that enables you to point to thumbnails on a drop-down gallery to see how a new font, font size, table style, or cell style would look on your selected data before you actually apply it.

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macro
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The left-most section of the Formula bar that displays the address or name of the current cell.

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pivot table
A special type of table unique to Excel 2007 that enables you to summarize large amounts of data and pivot or rearrange the table's data to display different summaries of the information it contains.

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Ribbon
A new feature of the Excel 2007 interface that replaces the menus and toolbars of previous versions; appears at the top of the Excel window, just below the title bar.

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ScreenTip
A small window that displays descriptive text when you point to but don't click a command on the Ribbon or other objects in a worksheet.

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sheet tabs
Small tabs near the bottom of a worksheet that you click to move between the worksheets in a workbook. You can assign descriptive names to sheet tabs.

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slicers
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SmartArt
A type of graphic object in Excel 2007 that gives you the ability to quickly and easily construct graphical lists and diagrams in the worksheet.

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sparklines
Tiny graphs (miniature charts) that fit within a single cell in the worksheet, used to show basic trends in data.

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Status bar
A horizontal bar that appears at the bottom of the Excel 2007 window and keeps you informed of Excel's current mode. In addition, you can use the Status bar to select a new worksheet view and to zoom in and out on the worksheet.

Excel Glossary
tabs
The various "pages" of Excel 2007's Ribbon interface that you click to display command buttons relating to the tab's name, such as Page Layout and Formulas.

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template
A pre-designed worksheet that can be used as a basis for creating new worksheets.

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WordArt
Stylized text objects that you use to add pizzazz and emphasis to headings and other text in Excel 2007 worksheets.

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workbook
The basic file type that you create when you use Excel 2007. A new workbook consists of three worksheets by default.

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worksheet
The main document that you work in when you enter data into cells within Excel 2007. A worksheet is stored in a workbook file.

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worksheet area
The portion of an Excel 2007 worksheet in which you enter cell data and add objects such as charts and graphics.

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XPS XML Paper Specification
A file format developed by Microsoft that enables people to open and print documents in XPS Reader without access to the original programs with which the documents were created (such as Excel).

Excel Glossary
Zoom slider
An object on the Status bar in Excel 2007 that enables you to increase the magnification in a worksheet or shrink it down to get an overall picture of the worksheet data.