Excel 2013 For Dummies
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You can easily rename a worksheet tab in Excel 2013 to whatever helps you remember what you put on the worksheet. The sheet names that Excel comes up with for the tabs in a workbook (Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3) are, to put it mildly, not very original — and are certainly not descriptive of their function in life!

To rename a worksheet tab, just follow these steps:

  1. Double-click the sheet tab or right-click the sheet tab and then click Rename on its shortcut menu.

    The current name on the sheet tab appears selected.

  2. Replace the current name on the sheet tab by typing the new sheet name.

  3. Press Enter.

    Excel displays the new sheet name on its tab at the bottom of the workbook window.

Although Excel allows up to 31 characters (including spaces) for a sheet name, you want to keep your sheet names much briefer for two reasons:

  • The longer the name, the longer the sheet tab. The longer the sheet tab, the fewer the tabs that can display and the more tab scrolling you have to do to select the sheets you want to work with.

  • Should you start creating formulas that use cells in different worksheets, Excel uses the sheet name as part of the cell reference in the formula. Therefore, if your sheet names are long, you end up with unwieldy formulas in the cells and on the Formula bar, even when you’re dealing with simple formulas that only refer to cells in a couple of different worksheets.

Generally, the fewer characters in a sheet name, the better. Also, remember that each name must be unique — no duplicates allowed.

About This Article

This article is from the book:

About the book author:

Greg Harvey, PhD, is President of Mind Over Media, an online media company. He has written all editions of Excel For Dummies, Excel All-in-One For Dummies, and Excel Workbook For Dummies. Greg is an experienced educator with a wide variety of interests.

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