XL2000: Error When Invalid Characters in Drawing Object Name

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q213565

SYMPTOMS

When you run a Visual Basic for Applications macro that references a drawing object's name, you may receive the following error message:

Run-time error '1004':
Unable to get the DrawingObjects property of the Worksheet class

Back to the top

This error occurs if you attempt to reference a drawing object, such as a rectangle, an ellipse, or an AutoShape whose name contains one or more invalid characters.

Valid characters for drawing object names include the following:

Alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9)
Spaces ( )
Underscores (_)

All other characters are invalid and should not be used in drawing object names. For example, "Hello!" is an invalid name for a drawing object.

Back to the top

WORKAROUND

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. To work around this behavior, use either of the following methods.

Back to the top

Method 1: If Your Worksheet Contains a Single Drawing Object

If your worksheet contains a single drawing object or if you know that the drawing object in question is the first drawing object in the worksheet, you can reference it in your macro as follows:

ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(1).Select

Back to the top

Method 2: If Your Worksheet Contains Many Drawing Objects

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!":

Sub Test()
    For X = 1 To ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects.Count
        If ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(X).Name = "Hello!" Then
            ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(X).Select
            Exit For
        End If
    Next X
End Sub

Back to the top