VBA Sheets – The Ultimate Guide

This is the ultimate guide to working with Excel Sheets / Worksheets in VBA.

At the bottom of this guide, we’ve created a cheat sheet of common commands for working with sheets.

Sheets Vs. Worksheets

There are two ways to reference Sheets using VBA. The first is with the Sheets object:

Sheets("Sheet1").Activate

The other is with the Worksheets object:

Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate

99% of the time, these two objects are identical. In fact, if you’ve searched online for VBA code examples, you’ve probably seen both objects used. Here is the difference:

The Sheets Collection contains Worksheets AND Chart Sheets.

 

So use Sheets if you want to include regular Worksheets AND Chart Sheets. Use Worksheets if you want to exclude Chart Sheets. For the rest of this guide we will use Sheets and Worksheets interchangeably.

Referencing Sheets

There are several different ways to reference Sheets:

• ActiveSheet
• Sheet Tab Name
• Sheet Index Number
• Sheet Code Name

ActiveSheet

The ActiveSheet is the Sheet that’s currently active. In other words, if you paused your code and looked at Excel, it’s the sheet that is visible. The below code example will display a MessageBox with the ActiveSheet name.

MsgBox ActiveSheet.Name

Sheet Name

You are probably most familiar with referencing Sheets by their Tab Name:

Sheets("TabName").Activate

This is the sheet name that’s visible to Excel users. Enter it into the sheets object, as a string of text, surrounded by quotations.

Sheet Index Number

The Sheet Index number is the sheet position in the workbook. 1 is the first sheet. 2 is the second sheet etc.:

Sheets(1).Activate

Sheet Index Number – Last Sheet in Workbook

To reference the last Sheet in the workbook, use Sheets.Count to get the last Index Number and activate that sheet:

Sheets(Sheets.Count).Activate

Sheet “Code Name”

The Sheet Code Name is it’s Object name in VBA:

CodeName.Activate

Referencing Sheets in Other Workbooks

It’s also easy to reference Sheets in other Workbooks. To do so, you need to use the Workbooks Object:

Workbooks("VBA_Examples.xlsm").Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate

Important: The Workbook must be open before you can reference its Sheets.

Activate vs. Select Sheet

In another article we discuss everything about activating and selecting sheets. The short version is this:

When you Activate a Sheet it becomes the ActiveSheet. This is the sheet you would see if you looked at your Excel program. Only one sheet may be activate at a time.

Activate a Sheet

Sheets("Sheet1").Activate

When you select a Sheet, it also becomes the ActiveSheet. However, you can select multiple sheets at once. When multiple sheets are selected at once, the “top” sheet is the ActiveSheet. However, you can toggle the ActiveSheet within selected sheets.

Select a Sheet

Sheets("Sheet1").Select

Select Multiple Sheets

Use an array to select multiple sheets at once:

Worksheets(Array("Sheet2", "Sheet3")).Select

Worksheet Variable

Assigning a worksheet to an object variable allows you to reference the worksheet by it’s variable name. This can save a lot of typing and make your code easier to read. There are also many other reasons you might want to use variables.

To declare a worksheet variable:

Dim ws as worksheet

Assign a worksheet to a variable:

Set ws = Sheets("Sheet1")

Now you can reference the worksheet variable in your code:

ws.Activate

Loop Through All Sheets in Workbook

Worksheet variables are useful when you want to loop through all the worksheets in a workbook. The easiest way to do this is:

Dim ws as Worksheet

For Each ws in Worksheets
  MsgBox ws.name
Next ws

This code will loop through all worksheets in the workbook, displaying each worksheet name in a message box. Looping through all the sheets in a workbook is very useful when locking / unlocking or hiding / unhiding multiple worksheets at once.

Worksheet Protection

Workbook Protection

Workbook protection locks the workbook from structural changes like adding, deleting, moving, or hiding worksheets.

You can turn on workbook protection using VBA:

ActiveWorkbook.Protect Password:="Password"

or disable workbook protection:

ActiveWorkbook.UnProtect Password:="Password"

Note: You can also protect / unprotect without a password by omitting the Password argument:

ActiveWorkbook.Protect

 

Worksheet Protection

Worksheet-level protection prevents changes to individual worksheets.

Protect Worksheet

Worksheets("Sheet1").Protect "Password"

Unprotect Worksheet

Worksheets("Sheet1").Unprotect "Password"

There are a variety of options when protecting worksheets (allow formatting changes, allow user to insert rows, etc.)  We recommend using the Macro Recorder to record your desired settings.

We discuss worksheet protection in more detail here.

 

Worksheet Visible Property

You might already know that worksheets can be hidden:

There are actually three worksheet visibility settings: Visible, Hidden, and VeryHidden. Hidden sheets can be unhidden by any regular Excel user – by right-clicking in the worksheet tab area (shown above).  VeryHidden sheets can only be unhidden with VBA code or from within the VBA Editor.  Use the following code examples to hide / unhide worksheets:

Unhide Worksheet

Worksheets("Sheet1").Visible = xlSheetVisible

Hide Worksheet

Worksheets("Sheet1").visible = xlSheetHidden

Very Hide Worksheet

Worksheets("Sheet1").Visible = xlSheetVeryHidden

 

Worksheet-Level Events

Events are triggers that can cause “Event Procedures” to run. For example, you can cause code to run every time any cell on a worksheet is changed or when a worksheet is activated.

Worksheet event procedures must be placed in a worksheet module:

There are numerous worksheet events. To see a complete list, go to a worksheet module, select “Worksheet” from the first drop-down. Then selecting an event procedure from the second drop-down to insert it into the module.

 

Worksheet Activate Event

Worksheet activate events run each time the worksheet is opened.

Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
  Range("A1").Select
End Sub

This code will select cell A1 (resetting the view area to the top-left of the worksheet) each time the worksheet is opened.

Worksheet Change Event

Worksheet change events run whenever a cell value is changed on the worksheet. Read our tutorial about Worksheet Change Events for more information.

Worksheet Cheat Sheet

Below you will find a cheat sheet containing common code examples for working with sheets in VBA

VBA Worksheets Cheatsheet

VBA worksheets Cheatsheet