Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. 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: Counting the Times a Worksheet is Used.

Counting the Times a Worksheet is Used

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 4, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


5

You may want a way to keep track of how many times a particular worksheet is used. There are many ways you can accomplish this. One simple way is to just store the count in the worksheet itself. Right-click a worksheet tab, then choose View Code from the Context menu. Excel displays the Visual Basic Editor, where you should paste the following code:

Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
    Range("A1").Select 'customize Range
    ActiveCell = ActiveCell + 1
    Range("B1") = "times opened" 'customize Range
End Sub

This code increments the value in cell A1 every time the worksheet is activated. You can modify the cell locations where the macro writes its information, according to your needs.

A more thorough approach is to create a macro that increments named references within the workbook. Consider the following macro:

Function IncrementEventCounter(sName As String, sht As Object)
    On Error Resume Next
    If sht.Names(sName) Is Nothing Then _
      ThisWorkbook.Names.Add "'" & sht.Name & "'!" & sName, "1", False
    On Error GoTo 0
    With ThisWorkbook.Names("'" & sht.Name & "'!" & sName)
        .RefersTo = Val(Mid(.Value, 2)) + 1
    End With
End Function

This function is designed to be called from a different macro—one triggered by the event that should cause the usage counter to increment. For instance, if you want to keep track of every time the worksheet is activated, then you would use the following macro as part of the ThisWorkbook object:

Private Sub Workbook_SheetActivate(ByVal sh As Object)
    IncrementEventCounter "Activated", sh
End Sub

The macro increments a counter named "Activated" for the worksheet. It does this by calling the IncrementEventCounter macro, with the name of the counter and the name of the worksheet. If, instead, you wanted to count the number of times that a worksheet was changed, you could use the following macro as part of the ThisWorkbook object:

Private Sub Workbook_SheetChange(ByVal sh As Object, _
  ByVal Target As Excel.Range)
    IncrementEventCounter "Changed", sh
End Sub

The only difference between this macro and the previous one is that it increments a counter named "Changed." To see the values of the counters, just enter a formula in a cell that references the counter. For instance, you could enter =Changed to see the value of the Changed counter, or =Activated to see the value of the Activated counter. The value of each counter will differ from sheet to sheet, since the counters are maintained on a sheet-by-sheet basis.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the ExcelTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10544) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Counting the Times a Worksheet is Used.

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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Comments

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What is 0 + 7?

2024-10-06 05:02:39

Kiwerry

@J.Woolley: thanks for yours; I trust that you didn't take my comment as criticism; it was simply meant to inform.


2024-10-05 11:37:31

J. Woolley

@Kiwerry
The Q&A site I referenced 4 years ago was discontinued several years ago. The blog has not been updated since April 2023.


2024-10-04 04:31:19

Kiwerry

Update on J.Woolley's 2020 comment:
The link given produced, at best an "Under Construction" message; it also produced a security warning from Firefox. The main site (https://wellsr.com/vba/) is still easily available but I didn't see a link to "Q&A" or anything similar. It would be unfortunate if this were a permanent change in policy.


2020-08-21 10:15:23

J. Woolley

@Brendan
Yours would be a good question for wellsr VBA Q&A: https://ask.wellsr.com/vba
Be sure to cross-reference this Tip's web address.


2020-08-20 16:12:49

Brendan

At work we have a excel template that we use to print different labels for equipment. At the moment we use another spreadsheet to track how many of each piece of equipment we print labels for.
Would it be possible that each time we hit print on the label we can have another sheet in excel that would total up the different types Of equipment for so I can present this into graphs ?
Many thanks


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