

Step 2 – a dialog box will appear, asking you to input a password (optional).How to lock and protect formulas in Excel? Step 1 – go to the Review tab in the Excel Ribbon, and select “Protect Workbook”.

If you have some Excel sheets that you need to stay hidden from view.If you want the sheets to stay in the same order, but you trust others to edit the data accordingly.Changes you make here won’t impact individual sheets or cells, and most basic tasks in Excel will be unchanged. The next level of protection is at the workbook level. Level 2: Protecting the Excel Workbook Structure The Address Bar will appear completely blank. The cell will display just like it would normally, but the formula in the Formula Bar will not appear. This checkbox has a useful feature: formulas won’t be visible if you mark the cell as Hidden. The other option in the Protection screen is the “Hidden” one. Step 1 – Review the cells you want to have locked or unlocked, by selecting them and going to the Protection tab in the Format Cells menu (Ctrl + 1). To stop anyone from editing cells that are listed as “locked”:
How to password protect cells in excel 2007 how to#
If you don’t understand this, the rest of this section won’t make any sense! How to Lock Cells in Excel This is an important point to understand. All cells are set as “locked” by default.

You can set a sheet to “Protected”, which locks any cells that are set as “locked”.You can change a cell to be “locked” or “unlocked”.To lock cells in Excel, you have to consider three things: Understanding Locking Cells vs Protecting Sheets in Excel If you want to enforce certain sorting or filtering.When you want to restrict inserting/deleting rows or columns.If you want to restrict formatting or data entry.Level 1: Lock Cells, Hide Cells & Protect Worksheets in Excel Why use this type of protection? Level 3: File-level Encryption in Excel.Level 2: Protecting the Excel Workbook Structure.Level 1: Lock Cells, Hide Cells & Protect Worksheets in Excel.We’ll start with the most granular level, and work our way up to the broadest level. In the rest of this guide, you’ll learn the details of each of the three levels listed above, so you can apply the appropriate level of security that you need. Stop users from altering the number and order of worksheets in my Excel fileįorce users to open the file as read-onlyįorce users to use a password to open the file Protect Sheet (Review Tab) and select the relevant options in the dialog box Stop anyone from inserting/removing columns or rows In Excel, Lock the cells (enabled by default) and Protect Sheet (Review Tab) – Level 1 Make the relevant cells “Hidden” and Protect Sheet (Review Tab) – Level 1 Stop users from seeing the formulas that make up a value If you already know what you want to restrict access to, simply use the below table to quickly see what security feature will work best for you: I want to… If you send a protected Excel file to someone, assume that all information inside it can be accessed. Hopefully it makes it easier for you to understand!ĭISCLAIMER: The settings & features in this guide can stop other users from performing certain actions in Excel however there is still a risk that sensitive information may be accessed. The level numbers aren’t used directly in Excel itself, but in this guide this is how we’ve grouped up each of the sections. Have a look at the diagram below to easily understand the different levels of protection you can apply: The three different levels of protection & security available all serve different purposes. In this guide, you’ll learn how to lock cells in Excel, protect worksheets and workbooks, and password-protect your files for additional security. Most users don’t know a lot about these features because it isn’t clear what they do. Since an Excel workbook contains a wide range of features and elements, protecting or securing your Excel files can be complicated. There are several ways that Microsoft Excel can provide protection & security, depending on what you need. Or do you have a tightly controlled template where only specific cells or sheets should be edited? Have you ever wanted to lock down certain cells or restrict certain types of access to your Excel workbooks?ĭoes your Excel file have sensitive information like salary or pricing information, that needs to be hidden from view but used in formula calculation?
