Forum Discussion
Need help protecting formatted "hidden" cells in Excel Worksheets
Excel provides several options for protecting your workbooks and worksheets.
However, it is important to note that worksheet-level protection is not intended as a security feature. It simply prevents users from modifying locked cells within the worksheet .
1- To prevent someone from creating a copy of your workbook or sharing it with someone else, you can use file-level protection. This refers to the ability to lock down your Excel file by specifying a password so that users can’t open or modify it. You have two choices here: File encryption and Setting a password to open or modify a file . You can also use an online platform such as OneDrive where you can prevent from users actions.
2- To prevent someone from breaking your password-protected workbook/formatted cells, you should use a strong password that is difficult to guess or crack.
However, it is important to note that if you forget or lose your password, Microsoft cannot retrieve it for you.
Regarding your question about whether these options get translated between the Microsoft App and the Microsoft Web Service, i can't give an answer because my knowledge in this direction is limited. However, it is possible that some features may not be fully supported on the web version of Excel.
Link: Password options
Hope it helped you a bit!
NikolinoDE 1-the issue I run with when encrypting my workbook is that then the end user can no longer edit the worksheet unless they have the password. But if I provide them the password then they can now do whatever with the worksheet that i was preventing them from doing in the first place.
I guess to make my point more clear, how do people sell excel worksheets online and protect their worksheets from being copied and shared and used by other un authorized to do so?
2-Isn't there "unethical" ways to unprotect a password protected workbook by Macros or saving under .zip format regardless of the strength of the password? Even through 3rd-party services that break passwords...