Add and delete sheets

add and delete sheets

Most people are accustomed to working with Excel in two dimensions: across and down. But did you know that, by default, each Excel workbook actually consists of three separate sheets? What's more, you can add as many sheets as you need to the workbook. You can think of the Excel workbook file as a ring binder that is almost infinitely expandable to hold more pages.

To add a sheet, do the following:

1. Select the tab for the sheet that the new one should be placed to the left of. This will be the new sheet's initial location, but you can move it after inserting it as described later in this lesson.
2. Right-click the tab of an existing sheet, and choose Insert. The Insert dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 2-1.
3. Click Worksheet, and then click OK.

Figure 2-1: Insert a new worksheet into the workbook.

Notice in Figure 2-1 that there are other things you can insert besides worksheets. However, most of these are rather specialized and there are other, easier ways of inserting them. For example, as you'll learn in Lesson 5, there are better ways to create a new chart than using Insert.

When I'm using only one sheet in a workbook, I typically delete the remaining blank sheets. This prevents potential problems if I give the workbook to a less-experienced user who might accidentally click one of the other worksheet tabs and wonder where all the data went. You can also delete a worksheet just because you want to get rid of whatever's on it.

There are a couple of ways to delete a worksheet:

• Right-click the worksheet tab and choose Delete.
• Choose Edit > Delete Sheet.

If the sheet contains any data, a confirmation box appears and you must click the Delete button in it to confirm the deletion. If the sheet is empty, there's no confirmation dialog box.