Password Protect Cells

[Dharsh]

Does anyone know if I can password protect a few cells in
a worksheet. I am going to send out my spreadsheet to
people and don't want them to see the contents of certain
cells. I could change the colour of the text to white but
what if someone accidently pick it up! So can I password
protect those cells?

Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

You need to use the Locking and Protection features built into Excel.

I have posted a couple of other messages on this subject today, so have
alook there to see if they help.

Listed below is the text for a tutorial I'm in the process of writing for my
website, it's not finished yest, but Ithink there's enough for you to do what
you want. (The full article should appear in the next day or two).


******* Article draft starts *******
Cell Locking / Hiding
By default, all cells in a spreadsheet are ‘locked’. Any cells (or group of
cells) locking status can be checked by selecting the cells, then going to
the ‘Format’ menu, selecting ‘Cells’, and then the ‘Protection’ tab. (Shown
below)


The tab shows two attributes for the cells status, they can either be:
Locked – when selected a cell cannot have certain actions performed upon it,
depending the options selected when the password is applied.
Hidden – when selected the contents of a cell are only displayed on the
worksheet, not in the formula bar, this is useful for keeping formulae
hidden, and only having the result displayed on screen.

The tick boxes can have 3 different states:
Ticked – The selection is either locked or hidden, depending on which box is
ticked.
Empty - The selection is not locked or hidden, depending on which box is
ticked.
Ticked and Greyed out – Seen with a multiple cell selection, some cells are
either hidden or locked, and some are not.

Once you have selected the status for your cells, goto the ‘Tools’ menu,
select the ‘Protection’ option then ‘Protect sheet’.
Now supply a password, and select the attributes you want protected, and
you’re done.

**** Article Draft Ends *****

Please be aware that the inbuilt security isn't that robust, there are many
programs avaialble to crack the password, however the aove hould keep out the
casual viewer.

HTH

Neil
www.nwarwick.co.uk

 

[JulieD]

Hi

you would need to unlock the cells you want people to get to (format / cells
/ protection tab), change the font colour of the cells you don't want them
to get to to white and lock them and then when you put sheet protection
(tools / protection / protect sheet) on the sheet ensure that people can not
select unlocked cells (option in ver 2002 and above) (in ver 2000 you might
need to put "hidden" on the locked cells as well - format / cells -
protection tab).

however, it takes basically 1 web site and 2 mins (give or take) to break
sheet protection ... so the general rule is, if you don't want people to see
it, don't send it to them.

 

[Guest]

the other responses look good, but for hiding data and text in cells, I
prefer using the custom format ;;; (three semicolons) to hide the items in a
cell. I have had white formated text print as black when I printed a
document black and white only.