How to Insert a New Worksheet in Excel? 5 Easy Ways

(Note: This guide on how to insert a new worksheet in Excel is suitable for all Excel versions including Office 365

In Excel, you can add, store, retrieve, and perform operations on a variety of data. These data are stored in Excel files, which are technically called Excel Workbooks. To minimize the handling of multiple workbooks to store data, the concept of worksheets was introduced.

A Worksheet is a space in a workbook where you can store data. With the help of multiple worksheets, you can store different types of data in a single workbook. This will help you to retrieve and share data easily.

For better understanding, if you think of an Excel workbook as a book, then the worksheets are the pages in them.

When you open an Excel workbook, usually, only one worksheet will be available by default. If you want more than one worksheet and want to insert them, what will you do?

In this article, I will tell you how to insert a new worksheet in Excel in 5 easy ways.

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5 Ways to Insert a New Worksheet in Excel
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5 Ways to Insert a New Worksheet in Excel

There are a couple of methods to insert a new worksheet in Excel in an easy way.

By Clicking the + Icon

This is an easy method to add a new worksheet with just a click.

When you open an Excel workbook, you can see the current worksheet you’re in and the total number of worksheets in the particular workbook towards the bottom left corner of the Excel window.

To insert a new worksheet, click on the (+) icon next to the worksheet name.

*How to Insert a New Worksheet in Excel using + icon*

This inserts a new worksheet towards the right of the existing worksheet.

Once you have inserted a sufficient number of worksheets, you can use the arrow buttons to navigate between the hidden worksheets and view them.

By Right-Clicking on the Worksheet

There is another way to insert a new worksheet in Excel from the worksheet tab.

Right-click on any of the existing worksheets and select Insert.

This opens the Insert dialog box.

Under the General tab, select Worksheet and click OK.

This inserts a new Worksheet next to the current worksheet.

Though this method takes a couple of additional steps, this method gives you the option to choose between the types of worksheets or worksheet templates.

Using the Keyboard Shortcut

For almost every operation in Excel, there is a keyboard shortcut that enables you to perform them with ease. Even to insert a new worksheet in Excel, the shortcut keys prove to be an easy, quick, and efficient way.

To insert a new worksheet in Excel, hold the Shift key and press the F11 function key (Shift+F11). To use the function key in some keyboards, you will have to press the function key and then the F11 key.

This instantly inserts the worksheet towards the left of the existing worksheet.

There is another way to insert a new worksheet in Excel. In this method, hold the Alt and Shift keys and press the F1 key (Alt+Shift+F1).

Note: You can use these methods to insert multiple worksheets at the same time quickly and efficiently.

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Using the Home Main Menu

Another way to insert a new worksheet in Excel is from the Home main menu.

Navigate to the Home main menu in the Excel ribbons.

Under the Cells section, click on the dropdown from Insert and select the Insert Sheet.

*How to insert a new worksheet in Excel using Insert*

This immediately inserts a new worksheet next to the existing worksheet.

Using VBA Macros

Using the above-mentioned methods, we can insert one worksheet at a time. However, if you want to insert multiple worksheets (10 or 20) in a single go, you can use a VBA code.

To use the VBA code to insert a new worksheet, first, enable the Developer tab. Navigate to File and click on Options. In the Excel Options dialog box, click on Customize Ribbon.

In the Customize the ribbon section, check the checkbox for the Developer tab and click OK. This enables the Developer option in the main menu.

In the Developer tab, click on Visual Basic.

*Enable Developer and select Visual Basic*

The Microsoft Visual Basic for Application window opens.

Click on the View main menu and select Immediate Window.

In the Immediate window, enter the VBA code Sheets.Add Count:=10, where 10 denotes the number of worksheets you want to insert. In case you want to add 20 worksheets, change the code to Sheets.Add Count:=20.

Press Enter. You can see the worksheets added in the Project pane on the left.

Now, close the VBA window.

In the Excel window, you can see the set number of worksheets inserted. This method is preferred when you need to insert a bulk of worksheets and prevents any error.

Change the Default Number of Sheets When You Open

When you open previous versions of Excel (Excel 2013 or Excel 2016), the workbook opens with three worksheets by default. However, in later versions, only one worksheet is available by default when you open the workbook.

But, Excel offers you an option to set the default number of worksheets when you open it.

To set the default number of worksheets, open any Excel workbook.

Navigate to the File tab and click on Options.

Click on the General tab.

Scroll down to the When creating new workbooks section. In the Include this many sheets section, either enter the number or use the up and down buttons to set the number of worksheets.

Click OK.

Now, every time you open a new Excel workbook, three worksheets open by default.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the shortcut key to insert a new worksheet in Excel?

The shortcut key to insert a new worksheet in Excel is by pressing the Shift + F11 function key. Another way to insert a new worksheet is by pressing the Alt +Shift +F1 key.

What is the easiest way to insert a new worksheet in Excel?

To insert a new worksheet, click on the (+) icon you find towards the bottom left of the Excel window above the accessibility status bar.

How to add a new worksheet using Excel VBA?

Click on the Developer tab and click on the Visual Basic button. In the Visual Basic window, click on View and select Immediate Window. In the Immediate window, enter the code Sheets.Add Count:=10, where 10 denotes the number of sheets you want to insert.

Closing Thoughts

Inserting a new worksheet in Excel can help you keep all your data in one place. This, in turn, makes data handling more efficient and organized.

In this article, we saw how to insert a new worksheet in Excel in 5 easy ways. Choose the method that suits your purpose the best.

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Simon Sez IT has been teaching Excel and other business software for over ten years. For a low, monthly fee you can get access to 140+ IT training courses.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!

How to Insert a New Worksheet in Excel? 5 Easy Ways