Hiding worksheets

[Bill Ridgeway]

Someone on one of these NGs was asking recently how to prevent co-workers
from seeing worksheets. I've just discovered (and it wasn't mentioned at
the time) that it is possible in Excel to hide worksheets. It's not
guaranteed that someone with sufficient knowledge will not come along and
unhide the worksheet but it does put it out of sight.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

 

[Guest]

I hope whoever was asking spots this post.

 

[Roger Govier]

Hi Bill

Just a note on this.
Using Format>Sheet>Hide will hide any sheet in XL2003 or lower. In
XL2007, right click on Sheet Tab>Hide Sheet.
Using this method, sets the Sheets visible property to False.
Anyone choosing Format>Sheets>Unhide would be able to see the list of
hidden sheets, and Unhide any as required.

Using code, you can set the Sheets property to xlSheetVeryHidden, which
means the sheet will not show up in a list if the user chose
Format>Sheets>Unhide.

You can also do this manually. If you right click on a sheet tab and
choose View code, this will invoke the VB editor.
If the Properties Window is not visible, press F4 to show it.
The last item in the sheet's properties, is Visible, and the dropdown
allows one of 3 values to be set, xlSheetVisible, xlSheetHidden and
xlSheetVeryHidden.

Obviously anybody who knows this, can use the same method to Unhide the
sheet, unless the VBA Project Properties has been set to Locked for
Viewing and a Password applied.

Be aware that all passwords in Excel can be broken, and even without the
password, with the file open, a simple piece of code written in another
workbook could set the properties of all sheets in your workbook to be
visible again.

It is not a foolproof method by any means, but the xlVeryHidden feature
will be sufficient to keep the average Excel user from viewing or
amending sheets that you do not want them to.

 

[Dave Peterson]

xl2007 has the Unhide option built into the popup when you rightclick on any
tab. So the option is not as well buried as Format|sheet|unhide.

And there's another option that allows you to hide sheets as "very hidden". You
would need code or access to the sheet's properties (through the VBE is one way)
to unhide these very hidden sheets.

But these are not safe ways to protect intellectual property. But they can be
an effective way to hide data that the user would consider clutter--but your
workbook needs.