Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Returning a Worksheet Name.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 17, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Looking for a way to put the name of your worksheet directly into a cell? Excel makes this easy through the use of the CELL function. If you include the following in a cell, Excel returns the full path of the workbook, along with the sheet name:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here:
=CELL("filename")
For instance, if you entered this into a cell in the Sheet1 worksheet of the MyWB workbook, the information returned by Excel might be something like C:\My Documents\[MyWB.xls]Sheet1 (depending, of course, on the drive and directory in which the workbook is saved).
I should also note that if you have not saved the workbook yet, the CELL function returns a #VALUE error. This is because there is no filename to actually return until such point as you save.
To return just the worksheet name from this value, you could use the following in your cell:
=MID(CELL("filename",A1),(FIND("]",CELL("filename",A1))+1),50)
This will work for any worksheet name up to 50 characters in length. (If you routinely use different lengths, simply change the value in the formula.) Continuing the earlier example, Excel would return Sheet1 as the result.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11766) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Returning a Worksheet Name.
Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!
Want to make fast work of moving from one worksheet to another? Here's how to do the task when you have a lot of ...
Discover MoreIf your workbook contains a multitude of worksheets, the worksheet tabs at the bottom of the program window start to lose ...
Discover MoreIf you have multiple worksheets that each provide different ways to arrive at the same results, you may be wondering how ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2022-09-19 01:38:38
A client has a very small payroll -- 3 weekly paid -- and I do the payslips on Excel. For each employee I copy the last payslip and rename that tab in the format "AA yymmdd" where AA is the employee's initials. Sometimes I forget to change the date on the payslip as well. Your tip has inspired me to do something about this.
=DATEVALUE(LET(ThisDate,RIGHT(CELL("filename"),6),TEXTJOIN("/",FALSE,RIGHT(ThisDate,2),MID(ThisDate,3,2),LEFT(ThisDate,2))))
2022-09-17 10:55:16
J. Woolley
https://excelribbon.tips.net/T011766_Returning_a_Worksheet_Name.html
My Excel Toolbox includes the following function to return information about Target (a cell or range); default Target is the formula's cell:
=NameOf([This],[Target])
The first parameter This can be "sheet" (or "worksheet"), "book" (or "workbook"), "path" (or "filepath"), "app" (or "application"), "caption" (or "titlebar"), "statusbar", "user", "organization", "printer", "computer", "?" (or "help"), or the name of an environment variable (like "TEMP"). Default value is "sheet" (or "worksheet"); with "book" (or "workbook"), the filename is returned without its path.
This function is similar to Excel's CELL and INFO functions, but perhaps more useful.
See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox/
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments