I have a spreadsheet that I wish to protect so that its contents can be
viewed but not altered or copied by the recipients. I have set passwords for
the worksheet and the workbook and against the modify in tool options.
However it is still possible to select the entire contents of a sheet and
copy them to another workbook where they are unprotected! Is there any way
of stopping this?

It's worse than that. XL's internal protection is suitable for
preventing inadvertent modification of the workbook.

In addition to the copy/paste workaround, the other steps you've taken
already are trivial to bypass:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/removepwords.html

In brief: If someone with the wit to draw breath can access your
workbook, they can access everything in it.

One alternative would be to compile your logic and fixed data into a COM
add-in.

Or perhaps you could send a pdf?

That also won't prevent copying, of course.


In article <#(E-Mail Removed)>,
"Paul Tugwell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I have a spreadsheet that I wish to protect so that its contents can be
> viewed but not altered or copied by the recipients. I have set passwords for
> the worksheet and the workbook and against the modify in tool options.
> However it is still possible to select the entire contents of a sheet and
> copy them to another workbook where they are unprotected! Is there any way
> of stopping this?