You can call it a workbook instead of an Excel file. Within the workbook, users can create several worksheets in which data can be imported, analyzed, or even presented as charts. Create a new spreadsheet, Excel names it “Sheet” and appends a number as the order of creation e.g. Sheet5 which signifies that there are four sheets before it in the workbook.
However, maintaining Excel’s naming convention for sheets might get a little confusing especially when the sheets contain different information. Luckily, you can rename the Sheets. Here are five ways you can do so.
Things to Keep in Mind When Renaming Your Worksheet
While renaming your sheets in Microsoft Excel is very important, there are certain rules you must follow. They are below:
- You can’t rename sheet a sheet as “History.”
- You can’t leave the sheet name as blank.
- A sheet name cannot exceed 31 characters.
- You can’t use special characters such as ?, /, [, *,, etc., while naming the sheets.
- A sheet name cannot begin or end with an apostrophe.
With this information out of the way, here are our five best ways of renaming a sheet in Microsoft Excel.
Using a Keyboard Shortcut
In Microsoft Excel, use the Alt hotkey shortcut to rename a worksheet. Let’s show you which keys to use.
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Excel file.
Step 2: Click on the sheet you want to rename to mark it active.
Step 3: Press Alt + H + O + R on your keyboard to activate the Rename Sheet command.
Step 4: Type the new name and press Enter.
Note that you will activate the hotkeys when you press the Alt key on your keyboard. Pressing H selects the Home tab, O selects the Format tab, and R selects the Rename Sheets option. The main challenge with this option is that it is quite difficult to remember.
Double Left-Clicking on the Sheet Menu
The easiest way to rename a worksheet is by double-clicking it. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Excel file.
Step 2: Move your cursor to the base of the page before the Taskbar and you should see the different sheet tabs here.
Step 3: Double-left click on the sheet you want to rename and it’ll highlight the current name to let you edit it.
Step 4: Type the new sheet name and press Enter.
Right-Clicking on the Sheet Menu
Another quick way to rename a worksheet is by right-clicking on the existing name. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Excel file.
Step 2: Move your cursor to the base of the page before the Taskbar and you should see the different sheet tabs here.
Step 3: Right-click the sheet you need to rename.
Step 4: Select Rename to highlight the sheet’s current name.
Step 5: Type the new name of the sheet then press Enter.
One of the main advantages of this method is that it is pretty easy. You can complete the whole process in two mouse clicks.
Using the Format Tab on the Ribbon
Just like the methods above, using the Format tab on the Ribbon is quite easy. The only challenge is that compared to the first two methods, this method is lengthier and requires navigating several tabs. Check the steps below to know how to use this method:
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Excel file.
Step 2: Click on the sheet you want to rename to make it active.
Step 3: On the Home tab, click Format located under the Cells section.
Step 4: Click on Rename Sheet from the list of options available and that will highlight the name of the sheet.
Step 5: Type the new name of the sheet then press Enter.
Using an Accessibility Menu
This is the final method we will show you in this post. It only works if you haven’t changed the default sheet names. The default sheet names in Excel are Sheet1, Sheet2, and so on. Word will alert you with an accessibility issue if you have any unnamed sheets in your workbook.
The reason is that people that rely on a screen reader cannot tell what sheet they are on because of the generic sheet names. As such, you can rename these sheets by running the accessibility checker. Here’s how to use the accessibility menu to rename sheet names in Excel.
Step 1: Launch the Microsoft Excel file.
Step 2: Click on the sheet you want to rename to make it active.
Step 3: Select the Review tab in the Ribbon then click Check Accessibility. Your action will launch a windowpane with inspection results of your entire workbook.
Step 4: Go to the section labeled Default Sheet Names to see the sheets without new names.
Step 5: Click the downward chevron icon on the right of the sheet name you need to change and select Rename Sheet.
Step 6: Type the new sheet name and press Enter to save the new name.
This method is very helpful if you have a large workbook and you aren’t sure if you renamed all the sheets.
Managing Cell References on Microsoft Excel
Renaming your worksheet helps to easily identify the contents of the Excel file. It also makes it easier for cell referencing on Excel as you easily know the worksheet to select.