Copy sheet and get resulting sheet object?

Question

Is there any easy/short way to get the worksheet object of the new sheet you get when you copy a worksheet?

ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(\         


        

Answer 1

It is correct that hidden worksheets cause the new worksheet index to be non-sequential on either side of the source worksheet. I found that Rachel's answer works if you're copying before. But you'd have to adjust it if you're copying after.

Once the model is visible and copied, the new worksheet object is simply the ActiveSheet whether you copy the source before or after.

As a preference, you could replace:

Set newSheet = .Previous with Set newSheet = Application.ActiveSheet.

Hope this is helpful to some of you.

Answer 2

UPDATE:

Dim ThisSheet As Worksheet
Dim NewSheet As Worksheet
Set ThisSheet = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Sheet1")
ThisSheet.Copy
Set NewSheet = Application.ActiveSheet

Answer 3

Dim sht 

With ActiveWorkbook
   .Sheets("Sheet1").Copy After:= .Sheets("Sheet2")
   Set sht = .Sheets(.Sheets("Sheet2").Index + 1)
End With

Answer 4

Old post but wasn't sure about unhiding sheets or adding suffixes to names.

This is my approach:

Sub DuplicateSheet()
    Dim position As Integer
    Dim wbNewSheet As Worksheet
    position = GetFirstVisiblePostion

    ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Original").Copy Before:=ThisWorkbook.Sheets(position)
    Set wbNewSheet = ThisWorkbook.Sheets(position)

    Debug.Print "Duplicated name:" & wbNewSheet.Name, "Duplicated position:" & wbNewSheet.Index

End Sub

Function GetFirstVisiblePostion() As Integer
    Dim wbSheet As Worksheet
    Dim position As Integer
    For Each wbSheet In ThisWorkbook.Sheets
        If wbSheet.Visible = xlSheetVisible Then
            position = wbSheet.Index
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
    GetFirstVisiblePostion = position
End Function

Answer 5

I believe I have finally nailed this issue - it's been driving me nuts, also! It really would have been nice if MS made Copy return a sheet object, same as the Add method...

The thing is, the index which VBA allocates a newly copied sheet is actually not determined... as others have noted, it very much depends on hidden sheets. In fact, I think the expression Sheets(n) is actually interpreted as "the nth visible sheet". So unless you write a loop testing every sheet's visible property, using this in code is fraught with danger, unless the workbook is protected so users cannot mess with sheets visible property. Too hard...

My solution to this dilemma is:

1. Make the LAST sheet visible (even if temporary)
2. Copy AFTER that sheet. It MUST have index Sheets.Count
3. Hide the former last sheet again, if required - it will now have index Sheets.Count-1
4. Move the new sheet to where you really want it.

Here's my code - which now seems to be bullet-proof...

Dim sh as worksheet
Dim last_is_visible as boolean

With ActiveWorkbook
    last_is_visible = .Sheets(.Sheets.Count).Visible
    .Sheets(Sheets.Count).Visible = True
    .Sheets("Template").Copy After:=.Sheets(Sheets.Count)
    Set sh=.Sheets(Sheets.Count)
    if not last_is_visible then .Sheets(Sheets.Count-1).Visible = False 
    sh.Move After:=.Sheets("OtherSheet")
End With

In my case, I had something like this (H indicating a hidden sheet)

1... 2... 3(H)... 4(H)... 5(H)... 6... 7... 8(H)... 9(H)

.Copy After:=.Sheets(2) actually creates a new sheet BEFORE the next VISIBLE sheet - ie, it became the new index 6. NOT at index 3, as you might expect.

Hope that helps ;-)

Answer 6

I realise this post is over a year old, but I came here looking for an answer to the same issue regarding copying sheets and unexpected results caused by hidden sheets. None of the above really suited what I wanted mainly because of the structure of my workbook. Essentailly it has a very large number of sheets and what is displayed is driven by a user selecting the specific functionality, plus the order of the visible sheets was importnat to me so i didnt want to mess with those. So my end solution was to rely on Excels default naming convention for copied sheets, and explictly rename the new sheet by name. Code sample below (as an aside, my workbook has 42 sheets and only 7 are permanently visible, and the after:=Sheets(Sheets.count) put my copied sheet in the middle of the 42 sheets, depending on what sheets are visible at the time.

        Select Case DCSType
        Case "Radiology"
            'Copy the appropriate Template to a new sheet at the end
            TemplateRAD.Copy after:=Sheets(Sheets.count)
            wsToCopyName = TemplateRAD.Name & " (2)"
            'rename it as "Template"
            Sheets(wsToCopyName).Name = "Template"
            'Copy the appropriate val_Request to a new sheet at the end
            valRequestRad.Copy after:=Sheets(Sheets.count)
            'rename it as "val_Request"
            wsToCopyName = valRequestRad.Name & " (2)"
            Sheets(wsToCopyName).Name = "val_Request"
        Case "Pathology"
            'Copy the appropriate Template to a new sheet at the end
            TemplatePath.Copy after:=Sheets(Sheets.count)
            wsToCopyName = TemplatePath.Name & " (2)"
            'rename it as "Template"
            Sheets(wsToCopyName).Name = "Template"
            'Copy the appropriate val_Request to a new sheet at the end
            valRequestPath.Copy after:=Sheets(Sheets.count)
            wsToCopyName = valRequestPath.Name & " (2)"
            'rename it as "val_Request"
            Sheets(wsToCopyName).Name = "val_Request"
    End Select

Anyway, posted just in case its useful to anyone else