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Excel "Protect" feature

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7 replies

by sw723

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I work with a lot of spreadsheets making bids for clients, so there are times when I want to protect my work and I assign a password to the spreadsheet. I was showing this to my daughter and she said " I can get around the password!

She copied the spreadsheet , with the button to the left of the A column, pasted it to a new spreadsheet, changed some numbers in the spreadsheet, named it the same thing and wala, she changed my profit % and I would have never caught it. Is there a way to keep this from happening?

7 replies

by dklippert

Select the cells with formulas.
(Edit>Go to Special Formulas)
Go to Format>Cells and choose the Protection tab.
Put a check mark in Hidden.
Now when the shhet is protected, the formulas will not be seen (or copied).

by sw723

But this does not address the issue that really the whole spreadsheet is not protected if you can copy and paste and then change anything you want.

by dklippert

"But this does not address the issue that really the whole spreadsheet is not protected if you can copy and paste and then change anything you want."
By hiding the formulas, copy and paste will only copy the values.
I could also look at your spreadsheet and type the information into another workbook!
What do you want to happen?

by sw723

I want it to be protected from copying... They same error message should pop up when trying to copy as does when a change is trying to be made... The way it is now a person could copy my spreadsheet and change it, save with the same name and there is essentially no protection at all

by dklippert

The file itself can be copied and renamed. Protecting the cells by making the formulas hidden and then password protecting is some protection. However Excel's passwords are not that hard to crack, there are a number of sites that offer the service.
It ain't a perfect world.

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