Excel tab sheet names vs. Visual Basic sheet names

It seems that Visual Basic can not reference sheets according to user-modified sheet names. The worksheet tabs can have their names changed, but it seems that Visual Basic still thinks of the worksheet names as Sheet1, etc., despite the workbook tab having been changed to something useful.

I have this:

TABname = rng.Worksheet.Name  ' Excel sheet TAB name, not VSB Sheetx name.

but I would like to use sheet names in Visual Basic routines. The best I could come up so far is to Select Case the Worksheet Tab vs. Visual Basic names, which doesn't make my day.

Visual Basic must know the Sheet1, Sheet2, etc., names. How can I get these associated with the Excel tab names so that I don't have to maintain a look-up table which changes with each new sheet or sheet tab re-naming?

In the Excel object model a Worksheet has 2 different name properties:

Worksheet.Name
Worksheet.CodeName

the Name property is read/write and contains the name that appears on the sheet tab. It is user and VBA changeable

the CodeName property is read-only

You can reference a particular sheet as Worksheets("Fred").Range("A1") where Fred is the .Name property or as Sheet1.Range("A1") where Sheet1 is the codename of the worksheet.

This will change all worksheet objects' names (from the perspective of the VBA editor) to match that of their sheet names (from the perspective of Excel):

Sub ZZ_Reset_Sheet_CodeNames()
'Changes the internal object name (codename) of each sheet to it's conventional name (based on it's sheet name)

    Dim varItem As Variant

    For Each varItem In ThisWorkbook.VBProject.VBComponents
        'Type 100 is a worksheet
        If varItem.Type = 100 And varItem.Name <> "ThisWorkbook" Then
            varItem.Name = varItem.Properties("Name").Value
        End If
    Next
End Sub

It is important to note that the object name (codename) "(Name)" is being overridden by the property name "Name", and so it must be referenced as a sub-property.

Actually "Sheet1" object / code name can be changed. In VBA, click on Sheet1 in Excel Objects list. In the properties window, you can change Sheet1 to say rng.

Then you can reference rng as a global object without having to create a variable first. So debug.print rng.name works just fine. No more Worksheets("rng").name.

Unlike the tab, the object name has same restrictions as other variables (i.e. no spaces).

You should be able to reference sheets by the user-supplied name. Are you sure you're referencing the correct Workbook? If you have more than one workbook open at the time you refer to a sheet, that could definitely cause the problem.

If this is the problem, using ActiveWorkbook (the currently active workbook) or ThisWorkbook (the workbook that contains the macro) should solve it.

For example,

Set someSheet = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets("Custom Sheet")

This a very basic solution (maybe I'm missing the full point of the question). ActiveSheet.Name will RETURN the string of the current tab name (and will reflect any future changes by the user). I just call the active sheet, set the variable and then use it as the Worksheets' object. Here I'm retrieving data from a table to set up a report for a division. This macro will work on any sheet in my workbook that is formatted for the same filter (criteria and copytorange) - each division gets their own sheet and can alter the criteria and update using this single macro.

Dim currRPT As String
ActiveSheet.Select
currRPT = (ActiveSheet.Name)
Range("A6").Select
Selection.RemoveSubtotal
Selection.AutoFilter
Range("PipeData").AdvancedFilter Action:=xlFilterCopy, CriteriaRange:=Range _
    ("C1:D2"), CopyToRange:=Range("A6:L9"), Unique:=True
Worksheets(currRPT).AutoFilter.Sort.SortFields.Clear
Worksheets(currRPT).AutoFilter.Sort.SortFields.Add Key:= _
    Range("C7"), SortOn:=xlSortOnValues, Order:=xlAscending, DataOption:= _
    xlSortNormal