what are the rules for a valid sheet name in excel

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romstep

What are the rules for creating valid excel sheet names (num of chars, non
valid chars etc)
 
A sheet name must be 31 or fewer characters and cannot contain the
characters [ ] * ? / \ .

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)
 
Personally, I don't concern myself with the sheet naming rules. If I try to
name a sheet and Excel complains then I just keep trying until Excel stops
complaining.

Out of curiosity I tried to find the rules in Excel 2002 help but couldn't
find anything close. I used these search phrases:

sheet names
worksheet names
sheet name rules
worksheet sheet name rules
sheet name conventions
naming sheets
naming worksheets
sheet name specifications
illegal characters in sheet names
sheet name characters
sheet name length

So, if that information is buried in the POS help file I don't know where to
look.
 
Chip, where do you find that in the help files?

See my other reply!

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


Chip Pearson said:
A sheet name must be 31 or fewer characters and cannot contain the
characters [ ] * ? / \ .

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)



What are the rules for creating valid excel sheet names (num of chars, non
valid chars etc)
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
And the new sheet name can't match an existing sheet name in that same workbook.

And it can't be named History (xl2k and higher, if I recall correctly).
 
And it can't contain a colon :
And it can't be blank.
--
Jim Cone
Portland, Oregon USA



"romstep" <[email protected]>
wrote in message

What are the rules for creating valid excel sheet names (num of chars, non
valid chars etc)
 
Biff,
Enter a / (forward slash) inside an existing sheet name and press enter.
(xl2002)
 
Chip, where do you find that in the help files?

Using Excel 2007, I started to rename the sheet tab and if I typed a
character that was illegal for a sheet name, that character would not
be displayed when typed. That's how I determined the illegal
characters. I just tried typing all the characters. The length
restriction is just part of my general knowledge. Whether this is
documented in a help file, who knows? Probably not.

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)
 
Enter a / (forward slash) inside an existing sheet name and press enter.

Ah, there it is.

How foolish of me to look in the help file! <g>

Thanks, Jim!
 
Hi Chip!

Jim clued me in for Excel 2002.

That behavior in Excel 2007 seems ludicrous. At least previous versions
"complained" to let you know you did something wrong.
 
It appears that 2007 picked up its bad habit from 2003. It just ignores
invalid characters, and as for length, it just stop accepting input once you
smack into the wall. Of course if you name a sheet via VBA and use illegal
characters or too many valid ones, then you get this handy (for once) Error
1004 message:

Run-time error '1004':
While renaming a sheet or chart, you entered an invalid name. Try one of
the following:
Make sure the name you entered does not exceed 31 characters.
Make sure the name does not contain any of the following characters: :
\/?*[ or ]
Make sure you did not leave the name blank.

Go figure.
 
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