Find out how to Password Protect Individual Cells in Microsoft Excel
It can be very helpful to password protect spreadsheets to ensure that other people are unable to accidentally (or even deliberately) over-write important data or formulas and functions. Quite often though it would be more advantageous to encrypt just some cells leaving others editable. It could seem that this is something that could well be hard to achieve, but in fact it is not difficult to do
Setting up the Spread sheet for Password Protection
Initially we need to have an understanding of what happens when we password protect a spread sheet in MS Excel. We will begin by gaining an understanding of what occurs when we password encrypt a spreadsheet. Automatically, all cells in MS Excel are secured when password protection is applied to the spreadsheet. The default setting in Microsoft excel is for all cells to be locked when we encrypt the spreadsheet. What we need to do before we password protect the spreadsheet is inform Excel which cells we do not wish to be locked. This is accomplished by picking the cell or range of cells which we do not want to protect, then clicking the right mouse key and choosing the 'Format' option in the menu. Next we select the tab named 'Protection' which generates a dialogue box containing two tick-boxes named 'hidden' and 'locked'. By default, the Locked box will have a tick within. What this means is that when password encryption is applied to the spreadsheet, the cell (or cells) will be locked. We basically need to un-tick the box then save the changes by clicking 'OK'. We can now set a password for the spread sheet.
How to Apply a Password to the Spread sheet
Your next step is to select the ‘Review’ tab on the Ribbon and then click on the ‘Protect Sheet’ tool button. A popup now presents itself which includes a field in which we will type in a password. It also features a range of tick-boxes which allow us to decide what can and cannot be done after the spreadsheet has been encrypted. The default position enables the selection of locked and unlocked cells, but nothing else can be done when the spreadsheet is locked. A password may now be typed, followed by clicking the 'OK' button. You will then be asked to re-apply the password to ensure that you have spelled it correctly. The spread sheet will now be locked down, however the cells that we previously marked as unlocked are still editable. To unprotect the worksheet, just click the 'Unprotect Sheet' button and enter the password.
What Can you Do if You Forget the Password?
initially that if you lose password then there is no chance to get back in to your spreadsheet. There is however a technique to get around the password protection, but it does depend upon which actions you've made permissable when we set up the password. As mentioned before, by default Microsoft Excel will permit you to select both unlocked and locked cells once the spread sheet is password-protected. With these two options checked it is actually easy to get back into your spreadsheet. The answer is to simply just copy the whole spread sheet, and then paste it into a new workbook. This has the effect of copying your complete data and formulas, but not the password password protection. The initial spreadsheet can be deleted and you may name this new workbook the same as original. In essence, we now have the original spreadsheet but without the password protection! If on the other hand we had un-ticked the first two allowed actions, we would not be able to select anything and as a result would not be able to copy and paste. This is effective if you want to prevent other individuals who are aware of the strategy from doing the same thing. But be certain you don’t forget your password!