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CVBBTreasurer's avatar
CVBBTreasurer
Copper Contributor
Aug 09, 2022
Solved

Macros & Passwords

I inherited an excel spreadsheet when I became the treasurer for the school band. It is Excel 2013. So old. Within my spreadsheet, each student has an account page. Every month a macro creates a pdf of each page (student account) and then gets emailed to the parents. Recently, I had to change the gmail password and now it needs changed in my spreadsheet. The password looks like it is in an imported picture, not a cell. But won’t let me edit. TY for any help. 

  • It sounds like the original author took a picture of the password information just so future users will have it but almost certainly the password itself is in the VBA/macro section. You and go there and search for the password and try to change it yourself. if you click alt-F11 that should open the VBA editor/environment and then on the left is a list of the workbooks that are open (and maybe some other things) if you don't see that try clicking ctrl-R to open the project explorer. double click an item is the workbook of interest to open a page of code (even if it is blank) and then hit ctrl-f to do a search. make sure you select entire project on the bottom left. search for the old password.
    Other than that, I would need the workbook to help you.

10 Replies

  • mtarler's avatar
    mtarler
    Silver Contributor
    It sounds like the original author took a picture of the password information just so future users will have it but almost certainly the password itself is in the VBA/macro section. You and go there and search for the password and try to change it yourself. if you click alt-F11 that should open the VBA editor/environment and then on the left is a list of the workbooks that are open (and maybe some other things) if you don't see that try clicking ctrl-R to open the project explorer. double click an item is the workbook of interest to open a page of code (even if it is blank) and then hit ctrl-f to do a search. make sure you select entire project on the bottom left. search for the old password.
    Other than that, I would need the workbook to help you.
    • CVBBTreasurer's avatar
      CVBBTreasurer
      Copper Contributor

      mtarler  TY for ur response. It sounds like u understand my problem. I did Alt F11 and it opened the VBAProject window. But now that I’m here, there is nothing obvious on how to change the password. 

      • mtarler's avatar
        mtarler
        Silver Contributor

        CVBBTreasurer again, without the actual book it is really hard for me to know.  Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

        notice the window on the left has VBAProject (Quality Matrix-GLNT_2021- ....

        and that project is opened

        on the right I have a code window open, in this case it is the frmPassword 

        in that code window you see I set a global constant sheetPW = "abc123"

        I would expect that somewhere in their code they did something sort of like this and that is why I suggested you do a search for that old password.  so once you open any code window inside that project you hit ctrl-F and search for that password and select "Current Project" like so:

        make sure that selection in the bottom left is set to "Current Project"

        It is possible that password is actually on a sheet/tab and the macro(s) find it there so do the same thing from the excel sheet:

        notice I expanded the "Options" and selected "Workbook" under the "Within" selection.

        If the password is saved on a 'hidden' or 'very hidden' sheet it may not find it so you should right click on any tab and select 'unhide' and unhide all sheets. (this won't unhide very hidden but lets start with these steps)

         

         

  • mathetes's avatar
    mathetes
    Silver Contributor

    CVBBTreasurer 

    Recently, I had to change the gmail password and now it needs changed in my spreadsheet. The password looks like it is in an imported picture, not a cell. But won’t let me edit.

     

    You needed to change the gmail password for what, exactly? I can't image that it's a gmail password for the Excel spreadsheet. (Spreadsheets can be protected by a password, but it wouldn't be described as a "gmail password".)

     

    That aside, a password would not be a picture. Although there could be an image of a password; i.e., an image of some text. And, yes, it couldn't be edited, but if it's text, then that's a starting point.

     

    All in all, I'm not sure that what you're describing is an Excel issue, per se. So maybe you can give us a bit more to work with, beginning by responding to what I've said above.

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