Preventing Changes to Multiple Selected Worksheets

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 22, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


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In Lance's office they often have to select multiple worksheets in a workbook in order to print them or to create PDFs. When done, the worksheets remain selected. This causes a potential problem if someone forgets to deselect the worksheet group. If someone makes a change in a cell, the change occurs on all the other selected worksheets, as well; this is how Excel is designed. Lance wonders if there is a way to either stop the change being made on multiple worksheets or automatically have the multiple worksheets deselected after they are done with an action.

When you forget to deselect a group of worksheets, it can be frustrating that what you intended as a single-worksheet change ends up on all the worksheets. As Lance notes, this behavior is actually built into Excel; it is by design.

Perhaps the easiest solution is to simply change how you print your worksheets. You could select all the worksheets you want to print, and then do the actual printing by using a simple macro:

Sub PrintSelectedSheets()
    ActiveWindow.SelectedSheets.PrintOut
    ActiveSheet.Select
End Sub

The macro prints and, once that is done, deselects the group of worksheets so that only a single worksheet (the active one) is selected. The only downside to this approach is remembering to print via the macro, so it will take a bit of training for users.

This won't, of course, help you in situations where you selected a group of worksheets for some purpose other than printing. In those instances, you are left with remembering to deselect the group. (Or, if you can handle the action via macro, you could adapt the above to work for you.

Note:

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ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (7708) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is one more than 9?

2020-08-24 22:14:05

John Mann

Why not have a macro triggered by the print event which does the select active worksheet?


2020-08-24 09:58:59

Harlan Eshleman

Here is a page that gives a macro that will warn you if you are trying to make edits when multiple sheets are selected. I think that it would allow you to print, since that shouldn't invoke the worksheet change event.
https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/4166-excel-prevent-multiple-sheet-selection.html


2020-08-22 06:59:01

Elliot Penna

"The only downside to this approach is remembering to print via the macro, so it will take a bit of training for users."

Couldn't you disable print on opening the workbook, and enable it within the printing macro, print, and then disable printing again before exiting macro? That would, in effect, force people to use the macro to print. After all, if you are putting your trust in training, why not train everyone to select a single sheet on opening?

Better yet, why not have a macro on opening, or on closing, select a single sheet?


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