Worksheet password

[Dr Alok Modi MD]

Hi !
I know that you can prevent other users from opeing your excel book by
locking it with a password. But my incomes workbook has 8 sheets out of which
one sheet is confidential. I do not want somebody to to be able to prview
that sheet without a password. I do not mind if other worksheets are open to
public view in the same workbook. I have not been able to find a solution to
that. Could you help me out ?
Thanks

Dr Alok Modi MD

 

[Don Guillett]

While at the sheet desired, you may consider looking at
tools>protection>>>>

 

[Paul]

You could open the confidential worksheet, select the colums that have
information in them, hide the columns then use sheet protection to keep the
information hidden using a password. To view and edit the sheet you would
have to unprotect the sheet, unhide the columns to edit then rehide and
protect the sheet. You could also hide the sheet after protecting it by
right clicking on the sheet name and selecting hide. That way it would not be
immediately know that it existed. Rt clicking on another sheet will give the
unhide option.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Format>Sheet>Hide.

Tools>Protection>Protect Workbook with a password.

Note: Excel's internal security is very weak and passwords easily cracked.

My advice is..............if you don't want someone to see data in a workbook,
don't include the data in that workbook.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Dr Alok Modi MD]

Format>Sheet>Hide.

Tools>Protection>Protect Workbook with a password.

Note: Excel's internal security is very weak and passwords easily cracked.

My advice is..............if you don't want someone to see data in a workbook,
don't include the data in that workbook.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

Thanks

I already have password protected my workbook. But hiding and unhiding the
sheet is not a foolproof method. I needed to know if there is another method
of entering another password for the sheet only besides the book password
protection?

Dr Alok Modi MD

 

[JLatham]

One method that would be a little more secure, but at the price of being less
convenient for you to view/work with this sheet would be to:
Open up the VB Editor ([Alt]+[F11])
If the Project - VBA Project window is not visible (says that at the top of
it and has list of worksheets in the workbook in it), choose View [Project
Browser] from the VB Editor menu (or [Ctrl]+R)

Click on the worksheet name you wish to seriously hide. Look at it's
properties in the Properties window. As with the Project window, if it isn't
visible, choose View | Properties Window (or [F4])
at the bottom of the list will be the Visible setting. Use the dropdown
list to set it to xlVeryHidden.

This makes the sheet invisible and keeps it from showing up in the list of
sheets available to be made visible while in Excel.

This alone may be enough (combined with workbook password) to keep prying
eyes away from it. But if you want even more protection:

Decide on a VB Project password. Write it down somewhere - if you lose
this, it will be very difficult to get back into your VB project to make the
sheet visible later. While still in the VB Editor and with your sheet set to
xlVeryHidden, go to the menu bar's Tools option and choose VBAProject
Properties. Click on the [Protection] tab, check the "Lock Project from
Viewing" option and enter and confirm your password.

Close the workbook and reopen it and you should not see your sheet, and you
should not be able to get into the VB Editor without providing the password.
To work with the sheet, provide your password to get back into the VB Editor
and set the sheet's visible property back to xlVisible.

I think that's going to be about as good as it gets, maybe. But as Gord has
noted, bypassing all of this kind of thing in Excel is rather simple. I
could take this type of protection, open another workbook while your's is
open and write code to make all sheets in your workbook visible to me. A few
minutes with any of several Excel password cracking programs and it's all
available to me.

Gord's final advice of "if you don't want someone to see it, don't make it
part of the workbook" is the only sure way of keeping it confidential.

 

[Dr Alok Modi MD]

thanks
It is a solution but not that is very smooth and is time consuming. I wish
excel developers would build this in the next version. Thanks for your time
though. I am stuck in the above post also, could you help me there plaese,
nobody seems to have an answer there for me. The post is
titled "data gets rounded up". Thanks

Dr Alok Modi MD