So you or someone else protected sheets and the workbook, and you can’t unlock them as you have forgotten the password, “oh no we are going to need someone to crack it”, I hear you say, or “we need to hire a professional in to do this” you might proclaim.

A quick video below on how to do this in the simplest most accessible way, it takes a few seconds to work around and requires NO technical understanding.

Below we try to articulate what different Excel Sheet passwords are for, but please also take this time to help us out a bit

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So let’s look at what different types of passwords are for in Excel, mainly we need to understand the difference between “Encryption” and “Protection” in Excel.

Password Encryption

If you password encrypt a file, this is to achieve the following

  1. No one can view the content of the file unless they know the password. It will open with a blank screen.
  2. If they enter the correct password, they can edit and view anything in the sheet.
  3. This is for Encrypting sensitive data and ensuring only the right person can ACCESS the sheet.

PasswordE

Protecting Sheets and Workbooks

The instructions we have in this video are around bypassing these two functions. Protect Sheet and Protect Workbook.

Capture

  1. This is not for preventing someone from seeing your stuff. This is not a security aspect.
  2. This is to make the excel spreadsheet more user friendly.

If I use Protect Sheet and Protect Workbook, and send a spreadsheet to a customer to complete, say an order form, can they see things and amend things I don’t want them to?

Yes they can, as these two passwords are not intended for any security purposes, they are simply added to the sheet to make it more user friendly. To hide formulas, prevent users from writing into cells that would break the sheet. It in no way stops a user from unlocking the sheet, even if they do not know the password.

As we demonstrated in the video, this is not a security aspect.

What can we use protect sheet and protect workbook

We can use these where we want to achieve the following

  1. Making the excel spreadsheet more user friendly
  2. Defining what actions and changes a user can make to a cell

What can’t we use protect sheet and protect workbook for

  1. When we want to allow access to a spreadsheet, but hide sensitive information, like customer data.
  2. When we want to allow access to a spreadsheet, but hide business critical information, like pricing rules.

The short and sweet of it is

If you allow someone to access a spreadsheet, they can see everything that is in there.

Excel is essentially, an all or nothing tool.

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