Removing Pictures for a Worksheet in VBA

Rob wrote about a problem he was having removing pictures from a worksheet. He has macros that add a picture (a signature) as a shape, but when he later tries to delete the picture, he cannot find it in the Shapes collection.

There are a couple of things to check out. First of all, you should ensure that you are using the proper syntax to do the deletion. Check to make sure you are explicitly including the sheet object in your code. For instance, the following line will not work:

Shapes(1).Delete

Instead, you must specify the sheet, using code similar to any of the following lines:

ActiveSheet.Shapes(1).Delete
Sheets("Sheet1").Shapes(1).Delete
Sheets(1).Shapes("Signature").Delete

If you determine that the expected image is not in the Shapes collection, then it is possible that Excel (for strange reasons only known to Excel) moved the image to a different collection, such as the Pictures collection. If you suspect this, then try using the following macro:

Sub WhatAmI()
    Dim sTemp As String

    sTemp = "You selected this type of object: " & TypeName(Selection)
    sTemp = sTemp & vbCrLf
    sTemp = sTemp & "It's name is " & Selection.Name
    MsgBox sTemp
End Sub

Select the signature image, then run the macro. You should see a message box that indicates the type of object you selected, along with its name. You can then use the information to modify your macro so it deletes the image, as desired.