Excel background interruption with Teams theme.

Question

In my business, I need to share images of certain Excel tables within Teams chats. I copy a portion of the Excel table and paste it into the Excel file "as picture." Then, I copy this picture and paste it into the Teams chat. However, I encounter a problem when I try to display the picture. The cells in the Excel picture that have no specific background turn black (which I believe is due to my Teams theme being set to dark), making them unreadable.

Answer 1

Dear @Iseri, Baris,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft 365 Q&A forum community support team. We understand how frustrating it can be when dark mode settings interfere with the readability of your shared data. 

The core issue is that cells in Excel with "No Fill" are treated as transparent. When you paste these as a picture into Microsoft Teams, the application renders that transparency against your current theme. In Dark Mode, the background is black; since your text is likely black or dark gray, it becomes invisible against the dark background. 

To help me narrow down the cause, could you please provide the following details?  

• Have you tried changing the background color of the cells before copying them? 
• Is this issue occurring with all images or just specific tables? 
• Have you attempted using any other methods to copy/export images from Excel to Teams? 

In the meantime, please try the following official troubleshooting steps which usually resolve issues with basic issues: 

1. Change the Background Color in Excel: Before copying the picture, you might try filling the cells with a light background color. This should help them appear correctly in Teams, regardless of your Teams theme. 
2. Export Options in Excel: Instead of copying and pasting as a picture, consider exporting the table as an image (you can use tools within Windows like Snipping Tool or Screenshot). This can often preserve the visual aspects better. 
3. Modify Teams Theme: If the black backgrounds are an issue, you can experiment with switching to the “Default” or “High Contrast” theme in Teams to see if that renders the images more clearly. 

The temporary workarounds provided earlier (such as filling cells with a white background in Excel or temporarily switching Teams to light theme) should help you continue your work in the meantime. 

However, to ensure a lasting improvement and a permanent fix for this behavior, user feedback is invaluable. Below is a step-by-step guide on how you can submit your feedback directly to the Microsoft product development team. 

Therefore, your feedback is really valuable and here’s how you can submit your suggestion to Microsoft: 

• Visit the Microsoft Feedback Portal:  
• Go to: Feedback portal > Send Feedback > Describe your proposal in detail  
• Upvote & collaborate: Check existing suggestions and upvote similar ones.  

The more votes an idea gets, the higher its priority!  

Before creating a new entry, please search for keywords like “Excel picture dark theme” in the feedback portal. If a similar suggestion already exists, please upvote it and add a comment sharing your experience. Ideas with more votes receive higher priority from the development team. 

As community support moderators, we are not directly involved in product design or development. Our role is to provide technical guidance, troubleshooting steps, and direct users to official channels such as the Feedback Portal so your voice reaches the right engineering teams. 

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and truly appreciate your patience and contribution. Feedback from users like you is essential to helping Microsoft products improve. 

We will continue monitoring this issue and update you if any new solutions or information become available from the product team. 

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. 

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Answer 2

Filling in the cells every time isn’t a practical solution. Viewing it in the right way could be potentially possible even after opening the picture. I hope you noticed the difference between the two pictures I sent. The appearance looks fine before you open it from the chat.