Can I use VBA to import images (gifs) from the web into Excel?

Question

I have a list of URLs to .gif files in an Excel sheet. I want to use VBA to query these websites and insert these images into the same worksheet. I am using Excel 2007.

Answer 1

First you'll want to download the image. There are several methods for doing this. I use the URLDownloadToFile API.

Use the URLDownloadToFile API function to download a file from a URL into a file*:

Private Declare Function URLDownloadToFile Lib "urlmon" _
    Alias "URLDownloadToFileA" (ByVal pCaller As Long, _
    ByVal szURL As String, ByVal szFileName As String, _
    ByVal dwReserved As Long, ByVal lpfnCB As Long) As Long

(*visit link for full code)

Then a code sample like this will import them onto the worksheet wherever you like:

From Insert pictures using VBA in Microsoft Excel*:

Sub TestInsertPicture()
    InsertPicture "C:\FolderName\PictureFileName.gif", _
        Range("D10"), True, True
End Sub

(*visit link for full code)

To be fair to the original authors, I won't repost the code in its entirety here. Apologies for a mostly link-based answer.

Answer 2

Yes, you can do so. It is actually quite easy. Excel has a AddPicture function. From Excel VBA Help:

expression.AddPicture(Filename, LinkToFile, SaveWithDocument, Left, Top, Width, Height)

Use like this:

Sheets(1).Shapes.AddPicture "http://www.mywebsite.com/images/map.gif" _
                          , msoFalse, msoTrue, 100, 100, 500, 600

Left, Top, Width, & Height are all required and in points.