How to name an excel sheet

Keeping your spreadsheet organized is important!

A well organized spreadsheet can make a big difference for someone looking at it for the first time.

This can lead to less time required to comprehend and use the file properly with fewer errors.

Naming sheets appropriately is an integral part of a properly organized spreadsheet.

In this post, I’ll show you 7 ways you can use to rename the sheets in your workbooks.

Video Tutorial

Rules for Sheet Names

There are limits to what you can name a sheet.

If you try to name a sheet History, then you will get the above warning message letting you know it is a reserved name and can’t be used.

This isn’t the only limitation. There are some other conventions and characters that aren’t allowed when naming a sheet.

Here is a list of all the rules you will need to follow when naming your sheets.

• A sheet can’t be named History.
• A sheet name can’t be left blank.
• Sheet names can’t be longer than 31 characters.
• Sheet names can’t contain any of these characters [ ] / ? * :
• Sheet names can’t begin or end with an apostrophe character.

Fortunately, these rules aren’t extremely restrictive and most users won’t ever have any issues. Usually, the only rule that anyone comes up against is the maximum length of 31 characters.

Keep your sheet names short and you won’t have any issues!

Rename a Sheet Using the Right Click Menu

When you right-click on any of the sheet tabs in a workbook, there are a variety of options available including the ability to rename a sheet from this menu.

Right-click on the sheet you would like to rename then select Rename from the options.

The current sheet name will become highlighted and you can type your new name and press the Enter key to confirm.

Pros

• This is easy to perform and only requires two mouse clicks once you know about it.

Cons

• You need to discover the right-click menu exists before you can use it!

Rename a Sheet Using a Double Left Click

This is the quickest and easiest way of them all.

Once you learn about this mouse trick to rename your sheets, it will likely be your preferred method.

Double left-click on the sheet tab which you would like to rename.

Pros

• The quickest way to rename a sheet.
• Double click to rename is a fairly common mouse shortcut across various tools.

Cons

• None.

Rename a Sheet from the Home Tab

It’s a bit hidden, but there is a command in the Home tab for renaming a sheet.

Make sure the sheet you want to rename is the active sheet ➜ go to the Home tab ➜ click on Format in the Cell section ➜ select Rename Sheet from the options.

Unfortunately, this command is too hidden to be of any use. It’s not very intuitive that it is grouped in a button labelled Format.

Pros

• None

Cons

• Not easily discovered.

Rename a Sheet Using a Keyboard Shortcut

Unfortunately, there isn’t a dedicated keyboard shortcut for renaming a sheet.

But we can take advantage of the Alt hotkey shortcuts.

Alt + H + O + R will get you to the Rename Sheet command in the Home tab.

Pressing the Alt key will activate the hotkeys in the ribbon. Then pressing H will select the Home tab. Pressing O will select the Format command and then pressing R will select the Rename Sheets option from the Format command.

Pros

• You can use the keyboard to rename a sheet.

Cons

• Hard to remember.

Rename a Sheet Using the Accessibility Menu

This will only work if you haven’t already renamed the sheet from the default name of Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3, etc…

Having unnamed sheets represents an accessibility issue because anyone that relies on a screen reader won’t be able to tell what is in a sheet based on those generic default sheet names.

Unnamed sheets will get flagged as an accessibility issue when you run the accessibility checker and you will then be able to rename them.

Go to the Review tab and click on the Check Accessibility command.

This will run a check on the entire workbook and a window pane will open up with the inspection results.

There is a section called Default Sheet Names which can be expanded to show all the sheets which have not been renamed.

Click on the downward chevron icon to the right of any sheet name then choose Rename Sheet from the options.

This will highlight the sheet name and you can start typing your new name and press Enter when done.

Pros

• Good as a final check if you have created a large workbook with dozens of sheets.

Cons

• Hidden sheets do not show up in the inspection results.
• Not a practical way of renaming sheets.

Rename a Sheet Using the Navigation Pane

A great feature of Microsoft Word is the navigation pane which allows you to see all the headings and subheadings in your word document. You can click on any of the headings and instantly be taken to its location in your document.

Excel also now has a very similar navigation pane feature. The Excel Navigation Pane will show you a list of various objects like sheets, pivot tables, named ranges, etc. You can click on any the listed objects and Excel will take you to their location in the workbook.

Open the Navigation Pane by going to the View tab and clicking on the Navigation button in the Show section of the ribbon.

This will open up the Navigation pane which lists all the sheets in the workbook. Right-click on any of the sheets and choose Rename from the menu options.

This will open up Rename input box where you can type your new name. Press the Ok button to change the name.

This might be a handy option if you’ve already got the navigation pane open because you are already using it to navigate. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort of opening the navigation pane just to rename a sheet.

One thing to note about this method is it’s the only manual method that you can use to rename a sheet that’s not active.

Pros

• You can rename a sheet that is not the active sheet.

Cons

• Need to have the navigation pane open.

Rename a Sheet Using VBA

If you want to rename your sheets programmatically, then VBA might be the solution for you.

Suppose you wanted to change all the sheet names in your workbook to upper case. Using the previous methods would require a lot of tedious work as you would have to rename each sheet individually.

This is where a programmatic solution is best!

Sub UpperCaseSheets()

For i = 1 To Worksheets.Count
    Sheets(i).Name = UCase(Sheets(i).Name)
Next i

End Sub

Press Alt + F11 to open the visual basic editor then go to the Insert tab and select Module from the options.

Paste the above code into the module window.

The above code will loop through each sheet in the workbook and change the sheet name to upper case.

This will even rename any sheets that are hidden without needing to unhide them first.

You can run this code from Excel by going to the Developer tab and selecting the Macro command then pressing the Run button.

Pros

• You can rename sheets without selecting them first.
• You can rename all sheets with one click.
• You can rename any hidden sheets in the workbook without unhiding them.

Cons

• You need to be comfortable with VBA.
• You will need to save the workbook in the macro enabled xlsm format.

Rename a Sheet Using Office Scripts

Office scripts is another way you can automate a task in Excel, but it’s only available in business and enterprise versions of Excel online.

Open Excel Online and go to the Automate tab and click on New Script.

function main(workbook: ExcelScript.Workbook) {
	// get all worksheet objects into ws
	let ws = workbook.getWorksheets();
	
	//loop through each sheet in ws and change the name to uppercase
	for (let i = 0; i < ws.length; i++) {
		ws[i].setName(ws[i].getName().toUpperCase());
	}

};

This will open up the Code Editor where you can paste in the above code. Press the Run button to execute the code.

The above code will get all the worksheets in the workbook and loop through each and rename it upper case text.

This will make quick work of all the sheets in the workbook, including any hidden sheets.

Pros

• You can rename sheets without selecting them first.
• You can rename all sheets with one click.
• You can rename hidden sheets without unhiding them first.

Cons

• You need to be comfortable with the TypeScript programming language.
• Office Scripts are only available in Excel online business and enterprise plans.

Conclusions

Renaming sheets is a task you will have to do again and again in Excel.

There are a lot of easy options for this!

There are even ways to automate this for situations that require naming or renaming a large number of sheets.

Do you have a method for renaming your sheets that’s not mentioned? Let me know in the comments!

Using multiple worksheets in an Excel workbook is an easy way to keep your data organized. For example, you can have different sheets for different regions, or for different months/year, or different projects, etc.

And when working with multiple sheets, you may sometimes need to change their names.

In this Excel tutorial, I will show you some simple ways to rename a sheet in Excel (including a keyboard shortcut).

And in case you want to rename all the sheets as one go (such as adding a prefix or suffix to all the sheets), check out the section on using VBA to do this (it’s not complicated).

So let’s get started!

Rename Sheets with a Simple Double Click

Using a mouse is the easiest way to change the name of a sheet in Excel.

Below are the steps to rename a sheet using the mouse double-click:

1. Place your cursor over the sheet tab that you want to rename
2. Double-click on it. This will put the sheet name in the edit mode
3. Enter the name of the sheet that you want
4. Hit the Enter key (or click anywhere in the worksheet)

If you want to rename multiple sheets, you need to do these above steps for all the sheets.

Also, if you want to add a prefix/suffix to the sheet name, you the arrow keys to move the cursor when you’re in the edit mode in the tab. Once you have the cursor where you want to add the text, enter in manually.

Related: Increase Excel Tab Numbering as You Create a Copy

Rename Sheets with a Keyboard Shortcut

If you prefer using the keyboard and don’t want to switch to a mouse just to rename a sheet, you can also use the following keyboard shortcut (for Windows).

ALT + O + H + R

You need to press these keys one after the other in a succession.

While this is not one of the easy keyboard shortcuts, once you get used to it, you may find it a better way to rename sheets in Excel.

Pro Tip: In case you want to move to the next sheet, you can use the keyboard shortcut Control + PageUp/PageDown (hold the Control key and then press the PageUP key to move to the next sheet or PageDown key to move to the previous sheet.

Rename Sheets Using the Format Option in the Ribbon

You can also access the option to rename sheets through the Excel ribbon:

1. Click the Home tab
2. In the Cell group, click on the ‘Format’ option
3. Click on the Rename Sheet option. This will get the sheet name into edit mode
4. Enter the name that you want for the sheet

This method would only allow you to change the name of the current sheet. To change the name of some other sheet, you first need to activate it and then use the above steps.

While this method exists, I always prefer using the mouse double-click technique to change the name of the sheet.

Rename Sheets Using VBA – Add Prefix/Suffix to All Sheet Names in One Go

Sometimes, you may have a need to add a prefix or a suffix to all the sheets in your workbook.

While you can do this manually (using the methods shown above) if you only have a few worksheets. But in case you have a lot many, this could be tedious and error-prone.

In such a case, you can use a simple VBA code in the immediate window to get this done in a snap.

Below is the VBA code that will add the prefix “2020 – ‘ in front of all the sheet names:

For Each sh In Worksheets: sh.Name = "2020 - " & sh.Name: Next sh

The above code uses a VBA loop (the For Next loop) to go through each sheet in the workbook and change the name by adding the specified prefix.

Below are the steps to use this VBA macro code in Excel:

1. Right-click on any of the sheet tabs
2. Click on View Code. This will open the Visual Basic Editor backend
3. In the VB Editor window, click on the ‘View’ option in the menu and then click on Immediate Window. This will make the immediate window show up. You don’t need to do this in case the immediate window is already visible.
4. Copy and paste the above line of code in the immediate window
5. Place the cursor at the end of the line
6. Hit the Enter key

As soon as you hit the Enter key, the code is executed and it adds the specified prefix in all the sheet names.

Note that this will rename all the sheets – visible as well as hidden.

Similarly, if you want to add a suffix to all the sheet names, you can use the below code:

For Each sh In Worksheets: sh.Name = sh.Name & " - 2020": Next sh

You can even go a step further and also change the name of some specific sheets (let’s say only the ones where the text 2020 appears). This can easily be done by editing the code.

Sheet Naming Rules in Excel

When renaming a sheet in Excel, there are some naming rules you need to follow:

1. A sheet name can be a maximum of 31 characters in length.
2. You can not leave a sheet name blank.
3. You can not have two sheets of the same name.
4. You can not begin or end the sheet name with an apostrophe (‘). However, you can use it in the middle somewhere in the sheet name
5. You can not use the following characters while renaming the sheet in Excel: [ ] / ? : * 
   • This means that you can’t have a sheet name with a date that uses a forward slash. For example, 01/01/2020 isn’t a valid sheet name but 01-01-2020 is valid.
6. You can not name the sheet History (as it’s used internally by Excel)

I hope you found this Excel tutorial useful.

You may also like the following Excel tips and tutorials:

• How to Unhide Sheets in Excel (All In One Go)
• How to Get the Sheet Name in Excel?
• How to Sort Worksheets in Excel using VBA (alphabetically)
• Combine Data From Multiple Worksheets into a Single Worksheet in Excel
• How to Compare Two Excel Sheets
• Count Sheets in Excel (using VBA)
• How to Change the Color of the Sheet Tab in Excel