Add, Remove and Reorder Worksheets

This article demonstrates how to add, remove and reorder worksheets inside a workbook.

Add Worksheets

Adding a new worksheet to a workbook can be easily achieved through its Worksheets collection. The collection exposes an Add() method that does not take arguments and returns the instance of the newly created worksheet. By default worksheets are assigned the first available name in the sequence Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3… You can easily change the name of the worksheet through the Worksheet.Name property. More information about renaming a worksheet is available in the Rename a Worksheet article.

Example 1 creates a workbook from scratch and adds a single worksheet to it. Since this is the first worksheet in the workbook, it is also set as the active worksheet. All worksheets added after it will not become active.

Example 1: Create a workbook and add a worksheet to it

Workbook workbook = new Workbook(); 
Worksheet newWorksheet = workbook.Worksheets.Add(); 

Remove Worksheets

The Worksheets collection of the workbook offers two methods for removing worksheets: Remove() and RemoveAt(). The former method requires the worksheet name or the worksheet instance to be passed as an argument. The latter allows you specify the index of the worksheet you would like to remove.

Example 2 creates a workbook and adds four worksheets. All worksheets are with their default names: Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3 and Sheet4. The code further demonstrates how to remove three worksheets using all of the aforementioned remove methods.

Example 2: Add and remove worksheets

Workbook workbook = new Workbook(); 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet1 
Worksheet secondWorksheet = workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet2 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet3 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet4 
 
workbook.Worksheets.RemoveAt(3); // Removed Sheet4 
workbook.Worksheets.Remove("Sheet1"); // Removed Sheet1 
workbook.Worksheets.Remove(secondWorksheet); // Removed Sheet2 
// the only worksheet left is Sheet3 

Reorder Worksheets

If you would like to change the order the worksheets appear inside the workbook, you can use the Move() method of the Sheets collection. The method allows you to move one or more consecutive sheets to a specified position. In Example 3, you can see how you can insert 4 sheets and move the last one to the first position in the collection. When the workbook is visualized, the fourth sheet will be the first one visible in the sheet tabs.

Example 3: Add and reorder worksheets

Workbook workbook = new Workbook(); 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet1 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet2 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet3 
workbook.Worksheets.Add(); // Sheet4 
 
workbook.Sheets.Move(3, 1, 0); // Move the fourth sheet to the first place