Renaming Sheets
Setting sheet names is an important feature to produce readable and understandable spreadsheets documents.
The name of a sheet is independent of the name of the spreadsheet. You enter the spreadsheet name when you save it for the first time as a file.
To rename a sheet in your document:
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Double-click the sheet tab or open its context menu and choose Rename Sheet. A dialogue box appears where you can enter a new name.
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Enter a new name for the sheet and click OK.
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Alternatively, hold down the Alt key and click on any sheet name and enter the new name directly.
The document can contain up to 10,000 individual sheets, which must have different names.
Sheet Naming Restrictions
Sheet names can contain almost any character. Some naming restrictions apply, the following characters are not allowed in sheet names:
- colon :
- back slash \
- forward slash /
- question mark ?
- asterisk *
- left square bracket [
- right square bracket ]
- single quote ' as the first or last character of the name
The single quote is Unicode U+0027, also known as apostrophe. Other single-quote characters, similar to apostrophe, are allowed, such as ʼ ‛ and ‚.
Using a Default Prefix for Sheet Names
You can set a prefix for the names of new sheets you create. Choose Tools - Options - Office Calc - Defaults and enter the prefix name in Prefix name for new worksheet.
Referencing Sheet Names with Special Characters
In cell references, a sheet name must be enclosed in single quotes ' when the name contains other characters than alphanumeric or underscore. A single quote contained within a name has to be escaped by doubling it (two single quotes).
For example, you want to reference the cell A1 on a sheet named This year's sheet.
The reference must be enclosed in single quotes, and the one single quote inside the name must be doubled: 'This year''s sheet'.A1