Excel VBA to create a Table of Contents (TOC) summary sheet

Introduction

This Article provides VBA code that will create a Table of Contents (TOC) summary sheet for all Sheets in the Active Workbook.

A TOC sheet provides a useful index for larger files, especially when they are shared between many users. I suggest that every Workbook should be saved with such a TOC active, and with the active cell set to A1 on all Worksheets — good practice to help avoid potential confusion and errors. It is highly recommended that having run this code that users (manually) add further descriptive text, colour coding, model maps etc to the TOC to designate sheet functionality (assumption sheets, input sheets, scenarios, outputs etc).

While most readers will look at this Article in order to use this code, coders may find the programmatic insertion of a Sheet event useful for other tasks.
 

TOC Outputs

The code produces a brief summary of the Workbook Name, the time the TOC was created, and the total number of Sheets in the TOC report.
Each individual sheet name is listed below the summary, these names act as a live index to the Sheets in the Workbook.

Two methods are used to create the links to the Active Workbook Sheets:

1) Simple hyperlinks are created for standard Worksheets.
2) Less commonly used Chart Sheets — and even rarer Dialog Sheets — cannot be hyperlinked. If this code detects a non-Worksheet type, a Sheet BeforeDoubleClick event is programmatically added to the TOC sheet so that these Sheets can still be referenced via a short cut.

Note that (2) requires that macros are enabled for this approach to work.
 

Understanding the code

There are 6 major portions in the sample code:






 

Using the code

  1. Copy the code at the bottom of this Article
   2. Open any workbook.
   3. Press Alt + F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor (VBE).
   4. From the Menu, choose Insert-Module.
   5. Paste the code into the right-hand code window.
   6. Close the VBE, save the file if desired.

   In xl2003 go to Tools-Macro-Macros and double-click CreateTOC
   In xl2007 click the Macros button in the Code group of the Developer tab, then click CreateTOC in the list box.

Please note that this code should be run from a regular VBA Code Module.
 

Option Explicit
                      
                      Sub CreateTOC()
                          Dim ws As Worksheet
                          Dim nmToc As Name
                          Dim rng1 As Range
                          Dim lngProceed As Boolean
                          Dim bNonWkSht As Boolean
                          Dim lngSht As Long
                          Dim lngShtNum As Long
                          Dim strWScode As String
                          Dim vbCodeMod
                      
                          'Test for an ActiveWorkbook to summarise
                          If ActiveWorkbook Is Nothing Then
                              MsgBox "You must have a workbook open first!", vbInformation, "No Open Book"
                              Exit Sub
                          End If
                      
                          'Turn off updates, alerts and events
                          With Application
                              .ScreenUpdating = False
                              .DisplayAlerts = False
                              .EnableEvents = False
                          End With
                      
                          'If the Table of Contents exists (using a marker range name "TOC_Index") prompt the user whether to proceed
                          On Error Resume Next
                          Set nmToc = ActiveWorkbook.Names("TOC_Index")
                          If Not nmToc Is Nothing Then
                              lngProceed = MsgBox("Index exists!" & vbCrLf & "Do you want to overwrite it?", vbYesNo + vbCritical, "Warning")
                              If lngProceed = vbYes Then
                                  Exit Sub
                              Else
                                  ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(Range("TOC_Index").Parent.Name).Delete
                              End If
                          End If
                          Set ws = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Add
                          ws.Move before:=Sheets(1)
                          'Add the marker range name
                          ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add "TOC_INDEX", ws.[a1]
                          ws.Name = "TOC_Index"
                          On Error GoTo 0
                      
                          On Error GoTo ErrHandler
                      
                          For lngSht = 2 To ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Count
                              'set to start at A6 of TOC sheet
                              'Test sheets to determine whether they are normal worksheets
                              ws.Cells(lngSht + 4, 2).Value = TypeName(ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(lngSht))
                              If TypeName(ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(lngSht)) = "Worksheet" Then
                                  'Add hyperlinks to normal worksheets
                                  ws.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=ws.Cells(lngSht + 4, 1), Address:="", SubAddress:="'" & ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(lngSht).Name & "'!A1", TextToDisplay:=ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(lngSht).Name
                              Else
                                  'Add name of any non-worksheets
                                  ws.Cells(lngSht + 4, 1).Value = ActiveWorkbook.Sheets(lngSht).Name
                                  'Colour these sheets yellow
                                  ws.Cells(lngSht + 4, 1).Interior.Color = vbYellow
                                  ws.Cells(lngSht + 4, 2).Font.Italic = True
                                  bNonWkSht = True
                              End If
                          Next lngSht
                      
                          'Add headers and formatting
                          With ws
                              With .[a1:a4]
                                  .Value = Application.Transpose(Array(ActiveWorkbook.Name, "", Format(Now(), "dd-mmm-yy hh:mm"), ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Count - 1 & " sheets"))
                                  .Font.Size = 14
                                  .Cells(1).Font.Bold = True
                              End With
                              With .[a6].Resize(lngSht - 1, 1)
                                  .Font.Bold = True
                                  .Font.ColorIndex = 41
                                  .Resize(1, 2).EntireColumn.HorizontalAlignment = xlLeft
                                  .Columns("A:B").EntireColumn.AutoFit
                              End With
                          End With
                      
                          'Add warnings and macro code if there are non WorkSheet types present
                          If bNonWkSht Then
                              With ws.[A5]
                                  .Value = "This workbook contains at least one Chart or Dialog Sheet. These sheets will only be activated if macros are enabled (NB: Please doubleclick yellow sheet names to select them)"
                                  .Font.ColorIndex = 3
                                  .Font.Italic = True
                              End With
                              strWScode = "Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     Dim rng1 As Range" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     Set rng1 = Intersect(Target, Range([a6], Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp)))" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     If rng1 Is Nothing Then Exit Sub" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     On Error Resume Next" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     If Target.Cells(1).Offset(0, 1) <> ""Worksheet"" Then Sheets(Target.Value).Activate" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "     If Err.Number <> 0 Then MsgBox ""Could not select sheet"" & Target.Value" & vbCrLf _
                                          & "End Sub" & vbCrLf
                      
                              Set vbCodeMod = ActiveWorkbook.VBProject.VBComponents(ws.CodeName)
                              vbCodeMod.CodeModule.AddFromString strWScode
                          End If
                      
                          'tidy up Application settins
                          With Application
                              .ScreenUpdating = True
                              .DisplayAlerts = True
                              .EnableEvents = True
                          End With
                      
                      ErrHandler:
                          If Err.Number <> 0 Then MsgBox Err.Description & vbCrLf & "Please note that your Application settings have been reset", vbCritical, "Code Error!"
                      End Sub
                      

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