Deriving the Worksheet Name

There may be instances when you are developing a worksheet and you need to reference the name that you have assigned to the worksheet. (This is the name that appears on the worksheet tab, at the bottom of the Excel window.) Unfortunately, Excel does not include any intrinsic functions to do this. You can create such a function, however, by starting with the use of the CELL worksheet function.

If you include the following in a cell, Excel returns the fully path of the workbook, along with the sheet name:

=CELL("filename")

For instance, if you entered this into a cell in the Sheet3 worksheet of the MyBook workbook, the information returned by Excel might be something like C:\My Documents\[MyBook.xls]Sheet3 (depending, of course, on the drive and directory in which the workbook is saved).

To return just the worksheet name from this value, you could use the following in your cell:

=MID(CELL("filename"),(FIND("]",CELL("filename"))+1),50)

This will work for any worksheet name up to 50 characters in length. (If you routinely use different lengths, simply change the value in the expression.)

If you would prefer to use a macro-oriented approach, you can create a full-featured macro that will do the job. The following macro, SheetStuff, will return any of three separate items:

Function SheetStuff(numWanted As Byte) As String
    Select Case numWanted
        Case 1
            SheetStuff = ActiveSheet.Name
        Case 2
            SheetStuff = ThisWorkbook.Name
        Case 3
            SheetStuff = ThisWorkbook.FullName
        Case Else
            SheetStuff = ActiveSheet.Name
    End Select
End Function

To use this macro function, simply put =SheetStuff(X) in a cell in your worksheet. You should replace X with either 1, 2, or 3, depending on the information you want. If you use 1, the name of the current worksheet is returned. If you use 2, then the name of the workbook is returned. Finally, 3 returns the name and full path of the workbook.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2019) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.