Excel formula: Get workbook name only

Generic formula

=MID(CELL("filename",A1),FIND("[",CELL("filename",A1))+1,FIND("]", CELL("filename",A1))-FIND("[",CELL("filename",A1))-1)

Explanation

If you want to get the workbook name only (i.e. the file name without path or sheet name) you can do so with a rather long formula that uses the MID function along with the FIND function.

How the formula works

The cell function is used to get the full file name and path:

CELL("filename",A1)

The result looks like this:

path[workbook.xlsm]sheetname

At the highest level, the MID function simply extracts the file name from the path and sheet. The starting position is calculated with FIND:

FIND("[",CELL("filename",A1))+1

The number of characters to extract is also calculated with FIND:

FIND("]",CELL("filename",A1))-FIND("[",CELL("filename",A1))-1

Author

Dave Bruns

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Related functions

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The Excel CELL function returns information about a cell in a worksheet. The type of information to be returned is specified as info_type. CELL can get things like address and filename, as well as detailed info about the formatting used in the...

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Good links

Excel file and folder names (Chip Pearson)

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