One of the most common questions that Excel users ask is, how to password protect Excel documents. They often find themselves in awkward situations when they discover that some of their colleagues have password locked their worksheets, charts, etc. By now, most users understand that Excel stores its data in encrypted form. Unfortunately, even with encryption, sometimes files become vulnerable to unscrupulous prying eyes. If only there was a way to password protect the whole thing - then one could go about his or her daily work without worrying about the data on their sheets getting into the wrong hands. One of the most common questions that Excel users ask is, how to password protect Excel documents. They often find themselves in awkward situations when they discover that some of their colleagues have password locked their worksheets, charts, etc. By now, most users understand that Excel stores its data in encrypted form. Unfortunately, even with encryption, sometimes files become vulnerable to unscrupulous prying eyes. If only there was a way to password protect the whole thing - then one could go about his or her daily work without worrying about the data on their sheets getting into the wrong hands.
This is where password protect excel comes in handy. At the top of the screen, there is an "essions" drop-down menu. Select this drop-down menu and a new empty password protected document will appear. Type a password for this document and click OK. The password is now secure and if someone were to attempt to open the Excel document, he would be prompted for the password.
Online Drive Encryption If you do not have Microsoft Excel, there are other excellent choices for password protecting your workbook contents. One option would be to turn to online drive encryption programs like Drive Cryptainer 4. These programs are readily available on the internet and are quite easy to install. Once you download the software, an icon on the desktop will enable you to select it and activate it for Microsoft Excel.
Another online encryption program would be to use the built-in Zip Archive tool in Microsoft Office. By selecting "Zip All" from the menu that appears at the foot of the screen, a list of all the files in your computer (including ones that are not saved in your Excel worksheet) will be displayed. Click on the "Seek and Seal" tab and the "sha1 tag" option will appear. Click on this and a window will appear. Now you can choose to password protect the zip archive by selecting the "Password Always" check box.
Open the Zip Archive window by clicking on the "Open" button. You will then see two lists: one for the files that you want to password protect and the other for the ones that are already password protected. If any of the files are not password protected, the first list will be empty. Select the "unprotected file" link from the list on the left and browse to the Excel workbook where the password will be required.
File protection tool For even greater protection, an individual can take advantage of some additional features offered by some data protection software. One such feature is the ability to encrypt the Excel workbook before saving it to be stored on the hard drive. The password will be required before you are able to save the workbook to the hard drive, thus ensuring that only those you wish to have access to the protected data will have the ability to view it. If your file protection software is configured to also protect PowerPoint files, you can set the settings so that only you will have the ability to open the document in PowerPoint.
Use of macros One more option available to those looking to protect their Excel data is to use the built-in macros that are included with the software. Macros can often be set to perform password protection on a range of different file types. For example, a macro that is created to automatically hide charts can also be set to automatically encrypt the chart. This means that instead of having to create a complicated password for each chart in the report, the user simply has to set the appropriate macros, and the charts will be automatically protected. By combining the use of macros with file protection tool and specially configured password protection options, even the most careful employee can feel somewhat safe when dealing with Excel documents.
One last option that Excel users need to consider when trying to password protect worksheets is the use of VBA. VBA is a programming language that is often used by spreadsheet creators to allow them to easily perform a piece of the task without actually having to be a spreadsheet developer. You can use VBA to create methods of managing the spreadsheets such as making it read-only or making it writable. This means that while Excel may not be able to store all of the data that you would like to use for a password protection, it will at least be able to discern which cells you wish to keep private and which ones you would like to share with the rest of the world. Using VBA to prevent users from protecting worksheet protect worksheets is a very clever idea that almost anyone with access to Excel can take advantage of.