Problem renaming a worksheet tab

[nywelton]

I am teaching an introductory Excel course and three of my students ran
into a similar problem that I have never seen and can not find written
about anywhere.
They double-clicked on a worksheet tab, changed the name and hit
enter. Once they hit enter the name changed from "Lead Sales" to
".xls]Lead Sales" It didn't do anything unusual at that point. Later,
they go to rename the third sheet "schedule" and a window pops up
saying that the name is invalid because it contains excluded
characters, spaces or too many characters. They can not save, exit, or
switch tabs. The window keeps saying something is wrong with the
"Schedule" name and the only option is to Ctrl-Alt-Dlt and shut down
with task manager.
Any guess the reason for this error? Where did the .xls] come from
in front of the new name? Is there another option to solve the problem
without task manager and losing their work? Thank you

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just a guess...

The original file name had that square bracket in it.

I've seen this more with .txt and .csv files, though. Is that how the data
started?

If it was, tell them to close excel and rename the file and don't use those
funny characters in the filename.

I am teaching an introductory Excel course and three of my students ran
into a similar problem that I have never seen and can not find written
about anywhere.
They double-clicked on a worksheet tab, changed the name and hit
enter. Once they hit enter the name changed from "Lead Sales" to
".xls]Lead Sales" It didn't do anything unusual at that point. Later,
they go to rename the third sheet "schedule" and a window pops up
saying that the name is invalid because it contains excluded
characters, spaces or too many characters. They can not save, exit, or
switch tabs. The window keeps saying something is wrong with the
"Schedule" name and the only option is to Ctrl-Alt-Dlt and shut down
with task manager.
Any guess the reason for this error? Where did the .xls] come from
in front of the new name? Is there another option to solve the problem
without task manager and losing their work? Thank you

 

[nywelton]

I'm afraid not. The file name does not have the square bracket. Also
the second problem is that they can not close excel or do anythin
else. The invalid name window keeps reappearing and all the othe
options are greyed out

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't have another guess.

I'm afraid not. The file name does not have the square bracket. Also,
the second problem is that they can not close excel or do anything
else. The invalid name window keeps reappearing and all the other
options are greyed out.