Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Returning a Worksheet Name.

Returning a Worksheet Name

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 3, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

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:

=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).

To return just the worksheet name from this value, you could use the following in your cell:

=MID(CELL("filename"),(FIND("]",CELL("filename"))+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 (2146) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Returning a Worksheet Name.

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 5 + 3?

2019-07-21 22:40:45

Craig Hynds

Thanks for the tip Allen.

A slight variation that manages any file length:
= RIGHT(CELL("filename"),LEN(CELL("filename")) - FIND("]",CELL("filename")))


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