How protect with password the access of a spreadsheet ?

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Manuel - 11 Aug 2005 18:00 GMT

Hi. I want to know how i can protect the access of non-authorized user to
view the content of one spreadsheet of all workbook.

The reason is my company has a sales report that it can be viewed for all
user but there are 1 spreadsheet that contain confidential information (in
the same workbook) that we wan't that be watched for all user of the report.

Best Regards,

Manuel

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sebastienm - 11 Aug 2005 19:23 GMT

Hi,

There no good way to prevent a user to see portions-only of a book.
You could:
- hide the sheet, say sheet Confidential: menu Insert > Sheet > Hide
- then Lock the STructure of the book by applying a password to the
workbook: menu Tools > Protection, Protect Workbook.
However, i believere that as long as a user can open the book, assuming he
knows there is a sheet called COnfidential, he could do in another sheet in a
cell:
=Confidential!A1
which would returns the values from sheet Confidential.

The safer is to distibutes books with only data that are ok for the user to
see... therefore having several distribution for several user groups.
BUt of course, it doesn't prevent a user of group A to give the file and
password to a user of group B.

Maybe someone else has a better idea.

Regards,
Sébastien

> Hi. I want to know how i can protect the access of non-authorized user to
> view the content of one spreadsheet of all workbook.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Manuel

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JE McGimpsey - 11 Aug 2005 19:45 GMT

There is no way to prevent someone who has access to your workbook from
seeing everything in it. Internal protection (using VBA) can make it
difficult for novices, but anyone who can find these newsgroups can find
ways to bypass that protection.

You'll need to either trust your employees to not look, or find a
different method of distribution that doesn't include the confidential
info.

If you trust your employees, you can search the archives for lots of
inventive schemes:

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?as_ugroup=*excel*

> The reason is my company has a sales report that it can be viewed for all
> user but there are 1 spreadsheet that contain confidential information (in
> the same workbook) that we wan't that be watched for all user of the report.

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davidm - 11 Aug 2005 20:29 GMT

Manuel,

One dependable way to shield your confidential spreadsheet fro
unauthorized users is to, in addition to "hiding" as suggested,
encrypt the sheet using VBA code. This strategy comes with the need t
have a parrarel "decrypting" code. The beauty of the encrypt/decryp
artifice is that you can set your own "enrypt" key which, in the manne
of speaking, is well-nigh difficult for anyone to detect (even allowin
for the vast degree of password-breaking nous in computing). I hav
developed one such twin-codes for encrypting and decrypting and hav
been using them flawlessly with proven security. You may wish t
contact me by private mail for a copy.

davi

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JE McGimpsey - 12 Aug 2005 21:32 GMT

Just for my edification, does your solution depend on the VBA code being
protected from viewing (is your algorithm asymmetrical so that knowing
the encryption coding doesn't allow you to reverse the encryption)?

What encryption method are you using? Is it a standard, such as In
article <davidm.1tm8uk_1123790733.1021@excelforum-nospam.com>,

> Manuel,
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> david

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stripedfrog - 30 Jan 2006 16:08 GMT

Not sure if this is an option but what about simply sending the users another
file? Make a copy of the workbook and delete the confidential worksheet.

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