Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 14, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
In Excel, selecting all the visible worksheets is as easy as right-clicking on any sheet tab and choosing Select All Sheets. However, accomplishing the same task with VBA code is more difficult.
Excel's online help suggests using the Array function with the Sheets collection to select sheets by name. This works great when you know the names of each sheet in the workbook. This poses a problem when you want to create generic code to select all sheets for any workbook. The good news is that you can use a variant of Microsoft's technique to reference sheets by index number. Below is the code:
Sub SelectSheets() Dim myArray() As Variant Dim i As Integer For i = 1 To Sheets.Count ReDim Preserve myArray(i - 1) myArray(i - 1) = i Next i Sheets(myArray).Select End Sub
This works great, unless the workbook contains hidden sheets, where Sheets(i).Visible = False. Of course, the above code can be adapted to ignore hidden worksheets:
Sub SelectSheets() Dim myArray() As Variant Dim i As Integer Dim j As Integer j = 0 For i = 1 To Sheets.Count If Sheets(i).Visible = True Then ReDim Preserve myArray(j) myArray(j) = i j = j + 1 End If Next i Sheets(myArray).Select End Sub
However, there is a little known parameter of the Select method: the Replace parameter. By using the Replace parameter, selecting all visible sheets becomes much easier:
Sub SelectSheets1() Dim mySheet As Object For Each mySheet In Sheets With mySheet If .Visible = True Then .Select Replace:=False End With Next mySheet End Sub
Note that mySheet is defined as an Object data type, instead of a Worksheet data type. This is done because in testing I encountered a problem with Chart sheets—they wouldn't be selected because they weren't of a Worksheet type.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3058) 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: Selecting All Visible Worksheets in a Macro.
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