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: Sheets for Months.

Sheets for Months

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 29, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021


2

When you are starting a new workbook, it is very common to name each worksheet after a different month of the year. If you do this quite a bit, you know it can be tiresome to rename each worksheet, in turn, to exactly what you need.

The following macro was developed to help in these situations. It checks the names of the worksheets in your workbook, renaming them to the months of the year if they begin with the letters "Sheet". If there are not enough sheets in the workbook, it adds sheets, as necessary, for each month of the year.

Sub DoMonths()
    Dim J As Integer
    Dim K As Integer

    For J = 1 To 12
        If J <= Sheets.Count Then
            If Left(Sheets(J).Name, 5) = "Sheet" Then
                Sheets(J).Name = MonthName(J)
            Else
                Sheets.Add.Move after:=Sheets(Sheets.Count)
                ActiveSheet.Name = MonthName(J)
            End If
        Else
            Sheets.Add.Move after:=Sheets(Sheets.Count)
            ActiveSheet.Name = MonthName(J)
        End If
    Next J

    For J = 1 To 12
        If Sheets(J).Name <> MonthName(J) Then
            For K = J + 1 To Sheets.Count
                If Sheets(K).Name = MonthName(J) Then
                    Sheets(K).Move Before:=Sheets(J)
                End If
            Next K
        End If
    Next J

    Sheets(1).Activate
End Sub

The last step in the macro is that it places the worksheets in proper order, for the months 1 through 12. The result is that if you have any other worksheets left in the workbook (in other words, you had some that did not begin with the letters "Sheet", then those worksheets end up at the end of the workbook, after the 12 months.

Note that the macro utilizes the MonthName function, which is built into VBA. It returns the full name of the month referenced by number (1 through 12) passed to it. (If you try to use it with a number outside that range, it returns an error.)

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 (11148) 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: Sheets for Months.

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 7 - 7?

2021-06-01 04:29:38

Mike

Using Willy's neat solution, this version copies an existing sheet (in this case called "Template") to create the 12 sheets with some data and formatting in.

Sub DoMonths3()
Dim X As Integer
For X = 12 To 1 Step -1
Sheets("Template").Copy before:=Sheets(1)
ActiveSheet.Name = Left(MonthName(X), 3)
Next X
End Sub


2021-05-30 11:15:31

Willy Vanhaelen

The macro in this tip renames the worksheets whose name starts with “Sheet” to a month name without checking whether they are already in use or not. But what if they are in use for something else? So, I thought it would be safer to leave them as is and create the 12 months as new sheets. The blank sheet(s) not needed can be easily deleted afterwards.

In this case the macro to do the job can be reduced to only 4 lines of code:

Sub DoMonths2()
Dim X As Integer
For X = 12 To 1 Step -1
Sheets.Add(before:=Sheets(1)).Name = Left(MonthName(X), 3)
Next X
End Sub

The macro places the months before the already existing sheets directly in the correct order. It also shortens the month names to the usual 3 first letters to facilitate navigation between sheets.


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