Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Turning Off Worksheet Tabs.

Turning Off Worksheet Tabs

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 27, 2018)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


At the bottom of the Excel window you typically see tabs that represent each of the worksheets in your workbook. Click on a tab and the contents of the worksheet are displayed. Excel allows you to control whether these tabs are displayed or not; simply follow these steps:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Excel displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the View tab is selected. (See Figure 1.)
  3. Figure 1. The View tab of the Options dialog box.

  4. Clear the Sheet Tabs check box to turn off the worksheet tabs.
  5. Click on OK.

Why would you want to turn off the worksheet tabs? The two typical answers are to provide more vertical space in which to display the content of the workbook and to make the Excel interface more similar to other spreadsheet programs that don't use tabs.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2808) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Turning Off Worksheet Tabs.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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