Forum Discussion
Protecting An Online Excel Workbook from being downloaded
Hello, I am currently teaching a financial literacy course and have designed a 6.4MB Excel Workbook to use as a teaching aid. As part of my course, I would like to offer my paid students access to the Excel workbook (Base Pro Forma) online with certain restrictions. Specifically, I would like to enable my students to open the Base Pro Forma, rename and save it to a file of their own, and make changes without altering the Base Pro Forma. However, I do not want to allow them to download any Excel version, but rather to work with their copy online. I am wondering if the current forms of Excel and/or Excel Online support this structure, and if so, how can it be achieved?
4 Replies
- However, I do not want to allow them to download any Excel version,
read only similar to below？
https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://e.anyoupin.cn/ceshi/viewdocx/docx/microsoft_forum.xlsx - Yes, there's a setting in OneDrive and SharePoint to 'block download' when sharing is being setup for someone.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/block-downloads-for-view-only-files-in-sharepoint-and-onedrive-6051184b-62ac-4149-b874-13dcd40ef91e- Thanks, Patrick, The Link and info don't seem to apply to what I'm looking to do.
I want/need students to be able to access my base pro forma online. I want them to be able to work with it to figure out their own deal with its own specifics. But, I DON'T wish for them to be able to change the Base Proforma (because the following students will also start out with the same Base Pro Foma). I DO want them to be able to save the Base Pro Forma to a file they only have access to, call it whatever they want, and change their downloaded version of the Base Pro Forma as they wish.
My concern is having paid users share the pro forma with friends and enemies or selling it as if it were their own. I Don't think Sharepoint does this.- You may need a stronger form of security than offered by Excel or a cloud service, something encrypted maybe.
