How to name Excel worksheets alphabetically? - vba

Question

I am trying to create a macro that will copy actual sheet and name it with next letter of the alphabet. First sheet "A" always exists in the workbook, other sheets (B, C, D, etc.) will be added as necessary. I managed to put together the following piece of code that can create sheet "B". Issue is that when copying sheet "B", I get Run-time error '1004' indicating error on the last line of code.
Sub newList()
' New_List Macro
Dim PrevLetter As String
PrevLetter = "ActiveSheet.Name"
ActiveSheet.Copy after:=ActiveSheet
ActiveSheet.Name = Chr(Asc(PrevLetter) + 1)
End Sub
Can anyone of you help?

Answer 1

Your code is giving an error as Soren mentioned.
However your code will give an error if sheet "A" is active after creation of "B" as sheet "B" already exists.
You might want to try this? for this, it's not important which sheet is active. Also this code will let you create sheets beyond Z. So sheets after Z will be named as AA, AB etc..
Using this code, In XL2007+ you can create sheets up till XFD (more 16383 sheets)
Using this code, In XL2003 you can create sheets up till IV (more 255 sheets)
CODE:
Sub newList()
Dim PrevLetter As String
Dim ws As Worksheet, wsNew As Worksheet
Dim wsname As String
Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("A")
ws.Copy after:=ThisWorkbook.Sheets(ThisWorkbook.Sheets.Count)
Set wsNew = ActiveSheet
wsname = GetNewName
wsNew.Name = wsname
End Sub
Function GetNewName() As String
Dim NewWs As Worksheet
For i = 2 To ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1).Columns.Count
ColName = Split(ThisWorkbook.Sheets(1).Cells(, i).Address, "$")(1)
On Error Resume Next
Set NewWs = ThisWorkbook.Sheets(ColName)
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
GetNewName = ColName
Exit For
End If
Next i
End Function

Answer 2

You should simply write your code like this instead:
Sub newList()
' New_List Macro
Dim PrevLetter As String
PrevLetter = ActiveSheet.Name '<--- Change made to this line
ActiveSheet.Copy after:=ActiveSheet
ActiveSheet.Name = Chr(Asc(PrevLetter) + 1)
End Sub
EDIT: This is not a "best practice code" answer. This just points out what in your own code were returning the error. The other answers to this question (so far) are indeed much more sophisticated and correct ways of solving this problem.

Answer 3

Here is another way you could do this:
Sub newList()
' New_List Macro
Dim PrevLetter As String
Dim wb As Workbook
Dim ws1 As Worksheet
Set wb = ActiveWorkbook
Set ws1 = wb.ActiveSheet
PrevLetter = ws1.Name
ws1.Copy After:=ws1
Sheets(Sheets.Count).Name = Chr(Asc(PrevLetter) + 1)
Set wb = Nothing
Set ws1 = Nothing
End Sub