24 June 2009

I don’t want people to see my formulae (and may also want to prevent editing of some cells)

To hide formulae in Excel2007 select the cell(s) with the formula or formulae and right click. The Format Cells panel has a Protection tab. In there check Hidden (and locked if you don’t want people to edit the cell at all). Then return to the sheet. On the Review ribbon, click Protect sheet. Be careful if you set a password to make a note of it somewhere!

In older Office all cells are locked by default, so ‘protecting’ the sheet will prevent any changes which may not be what you want. So you need to uncheck the ‘locked’ setting first for whichever cells you want people to have access to. I think it’s the same for Office 2007. To protect a sheet in Office 2003 and previous versions use Tools>Protection>Protect sheet after clearing cells as necessary.

Similar principles apply to hidden cells (‘hidden’ seems to mean formulae only rather than anything else)


No comments: