Rename sheet problem

[Craig92604]

I renamed a sheet and am getting the error

"While renaming a sheet or chart, you entered an invalid name, Try one of the following" blah blah blah.

The sheet name is valid, does not have any characters and isn't too long.

Please help!

 

[Jeggburt]

Are you renaming the sheet to a sheet that is perhaps already there (both hidden and visible sheets)?

 

[Craig92604]

Only sheet in the workbook?

 

[Jeggburt]

The only other thing I can think of that stops you from renaming sheets is if the workbook is protected, otherwise someone else might have to answer this.

Sorry.

 

[shajueasow]

Open the specific workbok and hit Alt+F11 to open the VB Editor. Now look for some codes that might prevent renaming sheets.

What is the name that you intend to give to the sheet?

 

[Tazguy37]

Some characters you can't use in a worksheet name. Characters not allowed in sheetnames:
: \ / ? * [ or ]
That is: Colon, back slash, forward slash, question mark, asterisk, left and right square brackets.

Hope that helps!

 

[CDICKENS]

Solution

This topic may be dead, but i think i know what causes this phenomenon. And this might be helpful for someone else who might be searching the forum.

This happens to me every time I try to rename a sheet in an excel file that is in a "temp" directory. There are usually illegal characters in the file name, IE. "Sales Analysis -[1]". If I choose rename and name my sheet "Book1" Excel names the sheet ".xls]Book1", then you get the error.


At that point the only thing you can do is to "X" out of the workbook and select save changes. Then select file --->open and click My recent documents to open the workbook. Then click file save as, and save the file to a normal directory with a valid file name. Now you can change the invalid sheet name.


Chuck

 

[lipstick]

I found this answer some time ago but now I am registered here I can give my thanks - I've also had this problem when it's a file saved to a temp directory. When you try to rename a sheet Excel puts in a "]" character in the sheet name and then you can't remove it.

The solution above works - many thanks, it was driving me insane!

 

[devine wind]

just wanted to add more info: if there are any of the illegal characters in the file name but not in the tab names, this will stop you from renaming any tabs.

this thread is at the top of google for this issue