Password protecting sheets in a workbook

[Les]

Here is my question. If I have one workbook that contains 20 sheets and
that each sheet contains info on each of the 20 different people what I want
to be able to do is send out this one workbook to the 20 different people
but for each person I want them to enter there own password which would
allow them to only see their sheet and not the other 19 sheets. Is there
any features within Excel that would allow me to do this? Looking forward
to hearing your response.

Thank you in advance,

Les

 

[Gord Dibben]

Les

Can be done with password protected sheets and some VBA code, but Excel's
internal security on password protected sheets is very weak.

Passwords can easily be cracked.

The passwording on VBA projects is harder to crack but can be done.

The general rule is........if you don't want someone to see data, don't include
it in the workbook.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Les]

Hi Gord,

first let me say thank you for your response. I am aware that security in
Excel is weak but it will be fine here since it will avoid confusion since
each person will only be able to open there sheet up. Along the lines you
were talking how would I go about setting it up? I dont need you to do it
for me but just some genreal dirrection. I am thinking that with what you
said I can apparently password protect each sheet? If so then why would I
need VBA code? Or did you mean that the VBA code would accept input from
the user and the code would unhide just the sheet that was tied to the
individuals password?

Looking forward to your or anyone elses response.

Les

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I think that's what Gord meant. But I'll reiterate that if the
information is even remotely sensitive, find a different way, since you
only need enough technical savvy to find these newsgroups in order to
find ways to bypass all XL protection.

If it's just for user convenience, one way to implement it is to hide
all the sheets in the _BeforeSave workbook event, then use the
Workbook_Open event to display an inputbox asking for the user name,
then another input box to get the password. You could fancy it up by
creating a UserForm where both could be entered at the same time, and
the password field could be masked. After a successful match, unhide the
appropriate sheet(s).

 

[Gord Dibben]

Right on the mark JE.

Exactly what I was getting at.

Add one point.................when saving/closing make visible a sheet with
message "You have disabled macros making this workbook unusable. Close and
re-open with macros enabled."

If macros enabled, message sheet will be hidden and user gets the password
inputbox to go from there.


Gord