How do i restrict sheets in excel?

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Table of Contents Show

Lock an Excel Sheet For Viewing
Excel and Read Only Spreadsheets
Protect a Workbook or Worksheet
Use Word Read Only Features
Converting to a PDF File
How do I restrict access to certain sheets in Excel?
How do I restrict sheets?
Can you lock individual worksheets in Excel?
How do you protect worksheets but allow editing?

This tutorial will demonstrate how to password protect an Excel sheet from being viewed.

Lock an Excel Sheet For Viewing

In Excel, you can completely hide and protect a worksheet from being viewed by hiding and then protecting the worksheet. If you only hide the sheet without protecting it, users can still unhide the sheet and view it.

Say you have an Excel file with three sheets (Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3).

You can hide Sheet1 by right-clicking it and selecting Hide.

As a result, this sheet is hidden, but if you right-click on any of the other sheets’ tabs, you can unhide it by clicking Unhide.

To completely lock a sheet for viewing, follow these steps:

Right-click the sheet you want to protect (here, Sheet1), and click Hide.

Now, protect the workbook. In the Ribbon, go to Review > Protect Workbook.

Enter a password, and press OK.

Reenter the password to confirm and click OK.

Now, if you try to unhide the sheet, you’ll see that the unhide option is disabled. This means you have completely protected your worksheet from viewing.

Note: You can also use VBA code to protect a sheet.

Usually, if you share an Excel spreadsheet with someone, that person is able to freely edit the spreadsheet. In some cases, you may want to send someone a spreadsheet with data but you also want to ensure that he doesn't accidentally or intentionally edit it, so that the numbers remain accurate. You can do this by making the spreadsheet read only in Excel or you can convert it from Excel to another format, such as a PDF file or even a website. Similar options are available for other common office software, including Microsoft Word.

Excel and Read Only Spreadsheets

You can have Excel make a spreadsheet in read only format for others, so that people can read its contents but not edit them, or you can enforce other content restrictions.

To do so, click the "File" tab in the ribbon menu, then click "Info." Then, click "Protect Document" and choose one of the options presented. Clicking "Always Open Read Only" will ensure that the document is always opened, so that people cannot change it; clicking "Restrict Access" will let you select other options to control as to whether or not people can edit or print the file.

Once you select the options you want, click "Yes, Start Enforcing Protection" and choose whether you wish to restrict editing and any other options, such as printing to specific Windows users or Microsoft accounts or as to whether you want to require a password to edit the file. Keep in mind that people may be able to copy data from the spreadsheet to another spreadsheet or file, and then edit it there if they wish to do so.

Protect a Workbook or Worksheet

Use the Excel protect workbook or _protect worksheet feature_s to set more granular controls over a spreadsheet or only over portions of the spreadsheet. A workbook is another name for an Excel spreadsheet file, whereas a worksheet is an individual tab of spreadsheet data within the file.

To use these features, click the "File" tab in the ribbon menu, then click "Info" and "Protect Workbook." Click "Protect Current Sheet" to restrict editing on the currently opened worksheet tab or "Protect Workbook Structure" for settings that apply to the entire file. Generally, you'll need to set a password that will need to be entered to make changes to this file. Memorize the password or store it in a safe place, such as in a secure password manager program.

Use Word Read Only Features

Microsoft Word and other parts of Microsoft Office have similar tools to make files read only or otherwise restricted.

As in Excel, click the "File" tab in the ribbon menu; click "Info" and then click "Protect Document" to restrict who can edit your Word document. The options are similar to Excel, and there is also a "Restrict Editing" feature that lets you specify specific types of editing that are and are not allowed. You can even limit formatting styles that can be used in the document.

Once you have finished selecting the restrictions you want, click "Yes, Start Enforcing Protection" and distribute the document.

Converting to a PDF File

Another way to protect a spreadsheet, a Word document or any other file, is to output it as a PDF file.

Many programs – including Adobe Reader and most of the contemporary Web browsers – can open PDFs, but the programs cannot edit the PDFs. Although PDF editing software is generally available, it's less likely that someone will accidentally edit a PDF than accidentally making changes while scrolling through a spreadsheet or a Word document.

To generate a PDF, use the print dialog on a Windows or MacOS computer. You can save the output as a PDF and distribute it with email or another messaging tool.

A downside of using PDF for this purpose is that it can be more difficult to select and work with the data, if someone wants to copy the data into a new spreadsheet file or have a program automatically process the data to perform computations.

How do I restrict access to certain sheets in Excel?

Select File > Info. Select Protect Workbook, point to Restrict Permission by People, and then select Restricted Access. In the Permissions dialog box, select Restrict permission to this workbook, and then assign the access levels that you want for each user.

How do I restrict sheets?

Click Set permissions or Change permissions. and choose an option: Only you: Only you (and the owner if you're not the owner) can edit the range or sheet..

Click Range..

Click Select data range. ..

In the spreadsheet, highlight the range you want to protect and click Ok..

Can you lock individual worksheets in Excel?

Excel allows you to protect individual worksheets, as you have learned in other issues of ExcelTips. (You choose Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet.) You can use this approach to protect individual worksheets independently, using different passwords.

How do you protect worksheets but allow editing?

1. Click Review > Protect Sheet. 2. In the Protect Sheet dialog box, specify a password in the Password to unprotect sheet box, and check the Edit objects box in the Allow all users of this worksheet to box, then click the OK button.