Knowledge Base

XL98: Charts.Delete Command in Macro May Delete Worksheets

Article ID: 183913

Article Last Modified on 6/17/2005

APPLIES TO

Microsoft Excel 98 for Macintosh

This article was previously published under Q183913

SYMPTOMS

If you run a Visual Basic macro to delete all of the chart sheets in a workbook, and the macro includes a line of code that is similar to the following

   ActiveWorkbook.Charts.Delete

Microsoft Excel may delete one or more worksheets, including the active worksheet.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if the workbook does not contain any chart sheets.

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 prevent this problem from occurring, modify the macro so that it checks for the existence of chart sheets in the workbook before it removes all of the chart sheets. For example, use the following code:

   If ActiveWorkbook.Charts.Count > 0 Then
       ActiveWorkbook.Charts.Delete
   End If

If there are one or more chart sheets in the workbook, Excel deletes them. If there are no chart sheets in the workbook, Excel does not execute the command to delete the chart sheets. This prevents the macro from deleting any of the worksheets.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

Note that this problem does not occur in earlier versions of Microsoft Excel. In earlier versions of Microsoft Excel, if the workbook does not contain any chart sheets, you receive the following error message:

Run-time error '1004':
Delete method of Sheets class failed

Also, note that charts that are embedded in worksheets do not count as chart sheets. If the workbook contains embedded charts but not chart sheets, the Charts.Delete command removes one or more worksheets from the workbook.

REFERENCES

For more information about the delete method, from the Visual Basic Editor, click Contents And Index on the Help menu (or on the Balloon Help menu if you are using a version of the Macintosh operating system earlier than 8.0), click the Index button in Microsoft Excel Help, type the following text

delete method

and then click Show Topics. Select the "Delete Method" topic, and click Go To. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.

Additional query words: XL98

Keywords: kbprogramming kbprb kbdtacode KB183913