Header in excel vba

Tables are one of the most powerful features of Excel.  Controlling them using VBA provides a way to automate that power, which generates a double benefit 🙂

Excel likes to store data within tables.  The basic structural rules, such as (a) headings must be unique (b) only one header row allowed, make tables compatible with more complex tools.  For example, Power Query, Power Pivot, and SharePoint lists all use tables as either a source or an output.  Therefore, it is clearly Microsoft’s intention that we use tables.

However, the biggest benefit to the everyday Excel user is much simpler; if we add new data to the bottom of a table, any formulas referencing the table will automatically expand to include the new data.

Whether you love tables as much as I do or not, this post will help you automate them with VBA.

Tables, as we know them today, first appeared in Excel 2007.  This was a replacement for the Lists functionality found in Excel 2003.  From a VBA perspective, the document object model (DOM) did not change with the upgraded functionality.  So, while we use the term ‘tables’ in Excel, they are still referred to as ListObjects within VBA.

Download the example file

I recommend you download the example file for this post.  Then you’ll be able to work along with examples and see the solution in action, plus the file will be useful for future reference.

Download the file: 0009 VBA tables and ListObjects.zip

Structure of a table

Before we get deep into any VBA code, it’s useful to understand how tables are structured.

Range & Data Body Range

The range is the whole area of the table.

The data body range only includes the rows of data, it excludes the header and totals.

Header and total rows

The header row range is the top row of the table containing the column headers.

The totals row range, if displayed, includes calculations at the bottom of the table.

List columns and list rows

The individual columns are known as list columns.

Each row is known as a list row.

The VBA code in this post details how to manage all these table objects.

Referencing the parts of a table

While you may be tempted to skip this section, I recommend you read it in full and work through the examples.  Understanding Excel’s document object model is the key to reading and writing VBA code.  Master this, and your ability to write your own VBA code will be much higher.

Many of the examples in this first section use the select method, this is to illustrate how to reference parts of the table.  In reality, you would rarely use the select method.

Select the entire table

The following macro will select the whole table, including the totals and header rows.

Sub SelectTable()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").Range.Select

End Sub

Select the data within a table

The DataBodyRange excludes the header and totals sections of the table.

Sub SelectTableData()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").DataBodyRange.Select

End Sub

Get a value from an individual cell within a table

The following macro retrieves the table value from row 2, column 4, and displays it in a message box.

Sub GetValueFromTable()

MsgBox ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").DataBodyRange(2, 4).value

End Sub

Select an entire column

The macro below shows how to select a column by its position, or by its name.

Sub SelectAnEntireColumn()

'Select column based on position
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns(2).Range.Select

'Select column based on name
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns("Category").Range.Select

End Sub

Select a column (data only)

This is similar to the macro above, but it uses the DataBodyRange to only select the data; it excludes the headers and totals.

Sub SelectColumnData()

'Select column data based on position
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns(4).DataBodyRange.Select

'Select column data based on name
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns("Category").DataBodyRange.Select

End Sub

Select a specific column header

This macro shows how to select the column header cell of the 5th column.

Sub SelectCellInHeader()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").HeaderRowRange(5).Select

End Sub

Select a specific column within the totals section

This example demonstrates how to select the cell in the totals row of the 3rd column.

Sub SelectCellInTotal()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").TotalsRowRange(3).Select

End Sub

Select an entire row of data

The macro below selects the 3rd row of data from the table.

NOTE – The header row is not included as a ListRow.  Therefore, ListRows(3) is the 3rd row within the DataBodyRange, and not the 3rd row from the top of the table.

Sub SelectRowOfData()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(3).Range.Select

End Sub

Select the header row

The following macro selects the header section of the table.

Sub SelectHeaderSection()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").HeaderRowRange.Select

End Sub

Select the totals row

To select the totals row of the table, use the following code.

Sub SelectTotalsSection()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").TotalsRowRange.Select

End Sub

OK, now we know how to reference the parts of a table, it’s time to get into some more interesting examples.

Creating and converting tables

This section of macros focuses on creating and resizing tables.

Convert selection to a table

The macro below creates a table based on the currently selected region and names it as myTable.  The range is referenced as Selection.CurrentRegion, but this can be substituted for any range object.

If you’re working along with the example file, this macro will trigger an error, as a table called myTable already exists in the workbook.  A new table will still be created with a default name, but the VBA code will error at the renaming step.

Sub ConvertRangeToTable()

tableName As String
Dim tableRange As Range

Set tableName = "myTable"
Set tableRange = Selection.CurrentRegion
ActiveSheet.ListObjects.Add(SourceType:=xlSrcRange, _
    Source:=tableRange, _
    xlListObjectHasHeaders:=xlYes _
    ).Name = tableName

End Sub

Convert a table back to a range

This macro will convert a table back to a standard range.

Sub ConvertTableToRange()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").Unlist

End Sub

NOTE – Unfortunately, when converting a table to a standard range, the table formatting is not removed.  Therefore, the cells may still look like a table, even when they are not – that’s frustrating!!!

Resize the range of the table

To following macro resizes a table to cell A1 – J100.

Sub ResizeTableRange()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").Resize Range("$A$1:$J$100")

End Sub

Table styles

There are many table formatting options, the most common of which are shown below.

Change the table style

Change the style of a table to an existing pre-defined style.

Sub ChangeTableStyle()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").TableStyle = "TableStyleLight15"

End Sub

To apply different table styles, the easiest method is to use the macro recorder.  The recorded VBA code will include the name of any styles you select.

Get the table style name

Use the following macro to get the name of the style already applied to a table.

Sub GetTableStyleName()

MsgBox ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").TableStyle

End Sub

Apply a style to the first or last column

The first and last columns of a table can be formatted differently using the following macros.

Sub ColumnStyles()

'Apply special style to first column
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowTableStyleFirstColumn = True

'Apply special style to last column
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowTableStyleLastColumn = True

End Sub

Adding or removing stripes

By default, tables have banded rows, but there are other options for this, such as removing row banding or adding column banding.

Sub ChangeStripes()

'Apply column stripes
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowTableStyleColumnStripes = True

'Remove row stripes
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowTableStyleRowStripes = False

End Sub

Set the default table style

The following macro sets the default table style.

Sub SetDefaultTableStyle()

'Set default table style
ActiveWorkbook.DefaultTableStyle = "TableStyleMedium2"

End Sub

Looping through tables

The macros in this section loop through all the tables on the worksheet or workbook.

Loop through all tables on a worksheet

If we want to run a macro on every table of a worksheet, we must loop through the ListObjects collection.

Sub LoopThroughAllTablesWorksheet()

'Create variables to hold the worksheet and the table
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim tbl As ListObject

Set ws = ActiveSheet
'Loop through each table in worksheet
For Each tbl In ws.ListObjects

    'Do something to the Table....

Next tbl

End Sub

In the code above, we have set the table to a variable, so we must refer to the table in the right way.  In the section labeled ‘Do something to the table…, insert the action to be undertaken on each table, using tbl to reference the table.

For example, the following will change the table style of every table.

tbl.TableStyle = "TableStyleLight15"

Loop through all tables in a workbook

Rather than looping through a single worksheet, as shown above, the macro below loops through every table on every worksheet.

Sub LoopThroughAllTablesWorkbook()

'Create variables to hold the worksheet and the table
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim tbl As ListObject

'Loop through each worksheet
For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets

    'Loop through each table in worksheet
    For Each tbl In ws.ListObjects

        'Do something to the Table....

    Next tbl

Next ws

End Sub

As noted in the section above, we must refer to the table using its variable.  For example, the following will display the totals row for every table.

tbl.ShowTotals = True

Adding & removing rows and columns

The following macros add and remove rows, headers, and totals from a table.

Add columns into a table

The following macro adds a column to a table.

Sub AddColumnToTable()

'Add column at the end
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns.Add

'Add column at position 2
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns.Add Position:=2
End Sub

Add rows to the bottom of a table

The next macro will add a row to the bottom of a table

Sub AddRowsToTable()

'Add row at bottom
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows.Add

'Add row at the first row
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows.Add Position:=1
End Sub

Delete columns from a table

To delete a column, it is necessary to use either the column index number or the column header.

Sub DeleteColumnsFromTable()

'Delete column 2
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns(2).Delete

'Delete a column by name
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns("Feb").Delete
End Sub

Delete rows from a table

In the table structure, rows do not have names, and therefore can only be deleted by referring to the row number.

Sub DeleteRowsFromTable()

'Delete row 2
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(2).Delete

'Delete multiple rows
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").Range.Rows("4:6").Delete
End Sub

Add total row to a table

The total row at the bottom of a table can be used for calculations.

Sub AddTotalRowToTable()

'Display total row with value in last column
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowTotals = True

'Change the total for the "Total Column" to an average
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns("TotalColumn").TotalsCalculation = _
    xlTotalsCalculationAverage

'Totals can be added by position, rather than name
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns(2).TotalsCalculation = _
    xlTotalsCalculationAverage
End Sub

Types of totals calculation

xlTotalsCalculationNone
xlTotalsCalculationAverage
xlTotalsCalculationCount
xlTotalsCalculationCountNums
xlTotalsCalculationMax
xlTotalsCalculationMin
xlTotalsCalculationSum
xlTotalsCalculationStdDev
xlTotalsCalculationVar

Table header visability

Table headers can be turned on or off.   The following will hide the headers.

Sub ChangeTableHeader()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowHeaders = False

End Sub

Remove auto filter

The auto filter can be hidden.  Please note, the table header must be visible for this code to work.

Sub RemoveAutoFilter()

ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ShowAutoFilterDropDown = False

End Sub

I have a separate post about controlling auto filter settings – check it out here.  Most of that post applies to tables too.

Other range techniques

Other existing VBA techniques for managing ranges can also be applied to tables.

Using the union operator

To select multiple ranges, we can use VBA’s union operator. Here is an example, it will select rows 4, 1, and 3.

Sub SelectMultipleRangesUnionOperator()

Union(ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(4).Range, _
    ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(1).Range, _
    ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(3).Range).Select

End Sub

Assign values from a variant array to a table row

To assign values to an entire row from a variant array, use code similar to the following:

Sub AssignValueToTableFromArray()

'Assing values to array (for illustration)
Dim myArray As Variant
myArray = Range("A2:D2")

'Assign values in array to the table
ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows(2).Range.Value = myArray

End Sub

Reference parts of a table using the range object

Within VBA, a table can be referenced as if it were a standard range object.

Sub SelectTablePartsAsRange()

ActiveSheet.Range("myTable[Category]").Select

End Sub

Counting rows and columns

Often, it is useful to count the number of rows or columns.  This is a good method to reference rows or columns which have been added.

Counting rows

To count the number of rows within the table, use the following macro.

Sub CountNumberOfRows()

Msgbox ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListRows.Count

End Sub

Counting columns

The following macro will count the number of columns within the table.

Sub CountNumberOfColumns()

Msgbox ActiveSheet.ListObjects("myTable").ListColumns.Count

End Sub

Useful table techniques

The following are some other useful VBA codes for controlling tables.

Show the table data entry form

If a table starts at cell A1, there is a simple data entry form that can be displayed.

Sub ShowDataEntryForm()

'Only works if Table starts at Cell A1
ActiveSheet.ShowDataForm

End Sub

The following screenshot shows the data form for the example table.

Check if a table exists

The following macro checks if a table already exists within a workbook.  Change the tblName variable to adapt this to your requirements.

Sub CheckIfTableExists()

'Create variables to hold the worksheet and the table
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim tbl As ListObject
Dim tblName As String
Dim tblExists As Boolean

tblName = "myTable"

'Loop through eac worksheet
For Each ws In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets

    'Loop through each table in worksheet
    For Each tbl In ws.ListObjects

        If tbl.Name = tblName Then

            tblExists = True

        End If

    Next tbl

Next ws

If tblExists = True Then

    MsgBox "Table " & tblName & " exists."

Else

    MsgBox "Table " & tblName & " does not exists."

End If

End Sub

Find out if a table has been selected, if so which

The following macros find the name of the selected table.

Method 1

As you will see in the comments Jon Peltier had an easy approach to this, which has now become my preferred approach.

Sub SimulateActiveTable()

Dim ActiveTable As ListObject

On Error Resume Next
Set ActiveTable = ActiveCell.ListObject
On Error GoTo 0

'Confirm if a cell is in a Table
If ActiveTable Is Nothing Then
    MsgBox "Select table and try again"
Else
    MsgBox "The active cell is in a Table called: " & ActiveTable.Name
End If

End Sub

Method 2

This option, which was my original method, loops through each table on the worksheet and checks if they intersect with the active cell.

Sub SimulateActiveTable_Method2()

Dim ActiveTable As ListObject
Dim tbl As ListObject

'Loop through each table, check if table intersects with active cell
For Each tbl In ActiveSheet.ListObjects

    If Not Intersect(ActiveCell, tbl.Range) Is Nothing Then

        Set ActiveTable = tbl
        MsgBox "The active cell is in a Table called: " & ActiveTable.Name
    
    End If

Next tbl

'If no intersection then no tabl selected
If ActiveTable Is Nothing Then

    MsgBox "Select an Excel table and try again"

End If

End Sub

Conclusion

Wow!  That was a lot of code examples. 

There are over 30 VBA macros above, and even this does not cover everything, but hopefully covers 99% of your requirements. For your remaining requirements, you could try Microsoft’s VBA object reference library (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/Excel.ListObject)

If you want to insert certain information in the header / footer of the worksheet like the file name / file path or the current date or page number, you can do so using the below code.  If it is just one worksheet you can do it manually, but if it is multiple sheets or all sheets in the workbook which need this information to populated, you can do this using a simple vba macro / code.

This sample macro will insert a header/footer in every worksheet in the active workbook.  It will also insert the complete path to the workbook.

Option Explicit

Sub InsertHeaderFooter()

Dim wsAs Worksheet
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
 Each wsInThisWorkbook.Worksheets
                   With ws.PageSetup
                                       .LeftHeader = “Company Name:”
                                       .CenterHeader = “Page &P of &N”
                                       .RightHeader = “Printed &D &T”
                                       .LeftFooter = “Path : “ &ActiveWorkbook.Path
                                       .CenterFooter = “Workbook Name: & F”
                                       .RightFooter = “Sheet: &A”
                  End With
Next ws
Set ws = Nothing
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

To copy this code to your workbook, press Alt + F11 on your keyboard. Then on the left hand side, you will see Microsoft Excel Objects.  Right click and select Insert.  Then click on Module and copy this code to the code window on the right.

Lets break up each part of the code –

We start with the usual Dim statement where we declare the variables.  In this case, we have only 1 variable – ws for the worksheet. Then we disable screen updating.

Now, in the FOR loop, we loop through each worksheet in the workbook which contains the macro. And we setup each parameter in Page Setup.  &P, &N, &D, &T, &F and &A are certain format codes which can be applied to headers & footers. &P prints the page number.  &N prints the total number of pages in the document. &D prints the current date.  &T prints the current time. &F prints the name of the document and &A prints the name of the workbook tab.

At the end we set the worksheet to nothing and free the object and enable screen updating.

Here are 2 pictures.  The 1^st one shows you the header and the 2^nd one the footer after the macro has been run.

The header has the label Company Name.  The name is not entered in yet since we haven’t linked it to any cell or fed in any text for the Company Name.  If you enter anything in the code or in the excel sheet and reference it, then the name will be picked up and populated here.

Page # of 0 shows that currently we have 0 pages in the file, since we have run this code on a blank file.  If you run this code on a file containing data, it will show you the page number.

Printed <Date><Time> gives you the date and time the macro was run along with the text “Printed”.

In the Footer, the Path label will show you the path of the current file.

Our filename is Book1.xlsx which is currently an unsaved file. Hence there is no path showing up for the Path label.

The Sheet number is populated to the right of the footer.

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In this article we will look at an example of how to transform columns into headers and sub-headers using Excel VBA.

Example 1:

So, let’s say you have a monthly expense report like this in a sheet called Expenses.

And you need to transform the columns Wages, Lease and Office Supplies into sub-headers for each month, in a format like this into a sheet called Output

Here is how we can achieve this. First we get the last row on the expense sheet so that we can loop through each row, as shown below:

 Set expenseSheet = Sheets("Expenses")
 Set outputSheet = Sheets("Output")

 'Get the last row from the expense sheet
 lastExpenseRow = expenseSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

 For currentExpenseRow = 2 To lastExpenseRow

'Actual code goes here

Next currentExpenseRow


Next, within the for loop, for each row we get the number of columns. Most of the times, this will be same for all rows and can be hard-coded outside the for loop (as we have done in the next example).
 'get the number of columns in the current row
 noOfCols = expenseSheet.Cells(currentExpenseRow, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column


Then, get the row number to paste into.
 '+2 so that a blank <a href="https://software-solutions-online.com/insert-rows-vba/" >row is inserted</a> between two months
 rowToPaste = outputSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 2).End(xlUp).Row + 2


Note: As we will be leaving a blank row in between 2 months, we are using + 2 at the end instead of + 1
While transforming data, we will first copy the name of the month
 'copy the month name
 expenseSheet.Cells(currentExpenseRow, 1).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 1)


The actual expenses will be pasted from the next row, so increment the counter
 'increment the row on the output sheet
 rowToPaste = rowToPaste + 1


For all the remaining columns (the expense columns), we will copy the expense header and the expense data from each column (of the respective month) and paste in the subsequent rows (for that month), like this
'For all the remaining expense columns
For colNo = 2 To noOfCols

'First copy the expense header
expenseSheet.Cells(1, colNo).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 1)

'And then the actual expenses for the corresponding month
expenseSheet.Cells(currentExpenseRow, colNo).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 2)

rowToPaste = rowToPaste + 1
Next colNo


Here is the entire code put together.
Sub colToHeaders()

Dim expenseSheet As Worksheet, outputSheet As Worksheet
Dim currentExpenseRow As Long, lastExpenseRow As Long, rowToPaste As Long
Dim noOfCols As Long, colNo As Long

Set expenseSheet = Sheets("Expenses")
Set outputSheet = Sheets("Output")

'get the last row from the expense sheet
lastExpenseRow = expenseSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

For currentExpenseRow = 2 To lastExpenseRow

With expenseSheet

'get the number of columns in the current row
noOfCols = .Cells(currentExpenseRow, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

'+2 so that a blank <a href="https://software-solutions-online.com/insert-rows-vba/">row is inserted</a> between two months
rowToPaste = outputSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 2).End(xlUp).Row + 2

'copy the month name
.Cells(currentExpenseRow, 1).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 1)

'increment the row on the output sheet
rowToPaste = rowToPaste + 1

'For all the remaining expense columns
For colNo = 2 To noOfCols

'First copy the expense header
.Cells(1, colNo).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 1)

'And then the actual expenses for the corresponding month
.Cells(currentExpenseRow, colNo).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 2)

rowToPaste = rowToPaste + 1
Next colNo

End With

Next currentExpenseRow
End Sub


Example 2:
Let us look at how to do the reverse — that is — you have data in headers and sub-headers format like this in the expenses sheet,

And you want to convert it into column format like this in the output sheet

Here we will assume that each month has exactly same sub-headers below it. The code is pretty similar to the above one and hence, the explanation is provided in the comments itself, in code below.
Sub headersToCol()

Dim expenseSheet As Worksheet, outputSheet As Worksheet
 Dim currentExpenseRow As Long, lastExpenseRow As Long, rowToPaste As Long
 Dim noOfCols As Long, colNo As Long

 Set expenseSheet = Sheets("Expenses")
 Set outputSheet = Sheets("Output")

 'get the last row from the expense sheet
 lastExpenseRow = expenseSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

 'This is the number of sub-headers under each month
 noOfCols = 3

 'Loop through each row on the expense sheet
 For currentExpenseRow = 3 To lastExpenseRow

 With expenseSheet

 'Get the row to paste into the output sheet
 rowToPaste = outputSheet.Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row + 1

 'copy the month name
 .Cells(currentExpenseRow, 1).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, 1)

 'increment the row on the output sheet as the expense data starts from the next row
 currentExpenseRow = currentExpenseRow + 1

 'For each of the expense columns below every month
 'We are looping till noOfCols + 1 as the expense columns start from column 2
 For colNo = 2 To noOfCols + 1

 'Copy the actual expenses for the corresponding month
 .Cells(currentExpenseRow, 2).Copy Destination:=outputSheet.Cells(rowToPaste, colNo)

 'Go to the next expense row
 currentExpenseRow = currentExpenseRow + 1

 Next colNo

 End With

 'Increment for the next month
 rowToPaste = rowToPaste + 1

 Next currentExpenseRow
End Sub


Thus, we can easily do column to headers / sub-headers transformation and vice-versa using the two example codes above. What’s the next step? Let’s say you want to take these values and output them to Word, then click to find out more.

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