XL97: Error When Invalid Characters in Drawing Object Name

When you run a Visual Basic for Applications macro in Microsoft Excel 97, you may receive the following error message:

This will occur if you attempt to reference a drawing object such as a rectangle or an ellipse, or an AutoShape whose name contains non-valid characters.

Valid characters for drawing object names include the following:

• Alphanumerics (A-Z, a-z, 0-9)
• Spaces ( )
• Underscores (_)

All other characters are invalid and should not be used in drawing object names.

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel.

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For example, if you know that the drawing object in question is the first drawing object in the worksheet, you can reference it as follows: If your worksheet contains a large number of drawing objects, you can use a loop to cycle through the drawing objects, checking each drawing object's name. For example, this sample subroutine will loop through all of the drawing objects in the active worksheet and select the drawing object named "Hello!":

In Microsoft Excel 97, you can create drawing objects and AutoShapes by using the tools on the Drawing toolbar. Once you have created a drawing object, you can change its name by selecting it, clicking the Name box to the left of the Formula Bar, typing a new name, and pressing the ENTER key.

If you rename a drawing object so that its name includes invalid characters, you cannot use a Visual Basic macro to directly reference the drawing object by its name. If your drawing objects' names include such characters, use the workaround shown above to reference the drawing objects.