Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • How to add Trendline to a chart in Excel
  • What-If Analysis: Scenarios and Goal Seek in Excel
  • Error Bars in Excel
  • Calculate Conditional Percentile ‘IF’ in table in Excel
  • Excel Pie Chart

References

  • How to use Excel FORMULATEXT function
  • How to calculate two-way lookup VLOOKUP in Excel Table
  • Two-column Lookup in Excel
  • INDEX function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Find Closest Match in Excel Using INDEX, MATCH, ABS and MIN functions

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation whole percentage only
  • Excel Data validation must not contain
  • Excel Data validation must contain specific text
  • Excel Data validation exists in list
  • Excel Data validation specific characters only

List sheet names with formula in Excel

by

To list worksheets in an Excel workbook, you can use a 2-step approach: (1) define a named range called “sheetnames” with an old macro command and (2) use an INDEX formula to retrieve sheet names using the named range.

Formula

=GET.WORKBOOK(1)&T(NOW())

Note: because this formula relies on a macro command, you’ll need to save as a macro-enabled workbook if you want the formula to continue to update sheet names after the file is closed and re-opened. If you save as a normal worksheet, the sheetname code will be stripped.

Explanation

In the example shown, the formula in B5 is:

=INDEX(MID(sheetnames,FIND("]",sheetnames)+1,255),ROWS($B$5:B5))

How this formula works

The named range “sheetnames” is created with this code:

=GET.WORKBOOK(1)&T(NOW())

GET.WORKBOOK is a macro command that retrieves an array of sheet names in the current workbook. The resulting array looks like this:

{"[workbook.xlsm]Sheet1","[workbook.xlsm]Sheet2","[workbook.xlsm]Sheet3",
"[workbook.xlsm]Sheet4","[workbook.xlsm]Sheet5"}

A cryptic expression is concatenated to the result:

&T(NOW())

The purpose of this code is to force recalculation to pick up changes to sheet names. Because NOW is a volatile function, it recalculates with every worksheet change. The NOW function returns a numeric value representing date and time. The T function returns an empty string (“”) for numeric values, so the concatenation has no effect on values.

Back on the worksheet, cell B6 contains this formula copied down:

=INDEX(MID(sheetnames,FIND("]",sheetnames)+1,255),ROWS($B$5:B5))

Working from the inside out, the MID function is used to remove the worksheet names. The resulting array looks like this:

{"Sheet1","Sheet2","Sheet3","Sheet4","Sheet5"}

This goes into the INDEX function as “array”. The ROW function uses an an expanding ranges to generate an incrementing row number. At each new row, INDEX returns the next array value. When there are no more sheet names to output, the formula will return a #REF error.

Post navigation

Previous Post:

DECIMAL function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Next Post:

AVERAGE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • How to use Excel AND Function
  • How to return blank in place of #DIV/0! error in Excel
  • Excel If, Nested If, And/Or Criteria Examples
  • SWITCH function example in Excel
  • How to use Excel XOR Function

Date Time

  • How to calculate next scheduled event in Excel
  • ISOWEEKNUM function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Display Days in month in Excel
  • How to Calculate Age in Excel
  • Get last working day in month in Excel

Grouping

  • Calculate conditional mode with criteria in Excel
  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel
  • Group numbers with VLOOKUP in Excel
  • How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel

General

  • Convert column letter to number in Excel
  • How to generate random number weighted probability in Excel
  • Sum by group in Excel
  • Convert column number to letter in Excel
  • Lock Cells in a Worksheet Excel
© 2025 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning