How to: Activate Workbooks

Article
02/04/2013

The Activate method of the Workbooks collection activates a Microsoft Office Excel workbook and selects the first sheet in the workbook.

Applies to: The information in this topic applies to document-level projects and application-level projects for Excel 2007 and Excel 2010. For more information, see Features Available by Office Application and Project Type.

To activate a workbook

Use the Activate method of the Workbooks collection.

Me.Application.Workbooks(1).Activate()

((Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel._Workbook)
    this.Application.Workbooks[1]).Activate();

You can index into the Workbooks collection using either integers (indicating the position within the collection) or workbook names. If you want to refer to a workbook by name, you must use the name as it appears in the title bar, which does not include the file name extension until you save the file.

To reference individual workbooks

Use the position number or the name of the workbook.

Dim wb As Excel.Workbook = Me.Application.Workbooks(1)

' Before Book1 is saved:
wb = Me.Application.Workbooks("Book1")

' After Book1 is saved:
wb = Me.Application.Workbooks("Book1.xls")

Excel.Workbook wb = this.Application.Workbooks[1];

// Before Book1 is saved:
wb = this.Application.Workbooks["Book1"];

// After Book1 is saved:
wb = this.Application.Workbooks["Book1.xls"];

To activate the workbook associated with a document-level project

In document-level projects only, activate the workbook by using ThisWorkbook.
```
Globals.ThisWorkbook.Activate()
```
```
Globals.ThisWorkbook.Activate();
```

How to: Activate Workbooks

To activate a workbook

To reference individual workbooks

To activate the workbook associated with a document-level project

See Also

Tasks

Concepts

Additional resources