XL3DynamicPicture

Updates a Picture or Pictures to an image on the internet.

This allows you to display an Picture based on a parameter in Excel. For example if a report is driven by a Store parameter, you could use this to display a picture of the store.

This function is primarily for use in reports published to the web where images update automatically. In Excel you can force a refresh of the images by using the XLCubed -> Extra -> Refresh Dynamic Pictures menu option (please note this will only retrieve a new picture in Excel if the formula has run in the current session and had a different URL to the last run)

Syntax

XL3DynamicPicture( PictureName, Url [, Resize] )

Parameters

Parameter	Description
PictureName	Alt Text > Alternative text (or the Alt Text > Description in Excel 2010 and higher) of the Picture to update. If several Pictures have the same name they will all be updated.
Url	Web address of the image to use, in the form http://www.example.com/logo.jpg.
Resize	New in V8. Resize the picture to its natural size so that it is not stretched. Default is false.

Example

You can setup a named image by inserting a picture using the standard Excel menu option.

Next set the Picture name by right-clicking it, and selecting properties. The name goes in the Alt Text > Alternative text box, or in the Alt Text > Description box in Excel 2010 and higher.

Finally set up a formula, e.g.

=XL3DynamicPicture("MyLogo"; "http://www.example.com/logo.jpg")

Here the Url paramater is fixed, but it could be set to reference another cell or concatenated text.

Scheduling/PDF

For dynamic pictures in reports that are going to be scheduled or downloaded as PDFs/Workbooks, the URL will need to be for a server that is accessible from the XLCubedWeb server and doesn't required any authentication. So an internet site URL is fine if the server has internet access, or a local server would be OK if that was setup to allow Anonymous access.

See Also

• Formula Reference