This will ensure that the only people who can tamper with your spreadsheet are those you give express permission to do so, locking customization of your sheet behind a secure encrypted password. Here’s how to do it.
Why Lock an Excel Workbook
Protecting an Excel workbook with a password can work in two ways:
Prevent unauthorized access to the workbookRestrict users from modifying the contents of the spreadsheet (makes it read only)
In both instances, you can protect an Excel workbook with a password to make it read only. This means users will be able to open the workbook and view the data but won’t be able to make any changes to the spreadsheet. This is vitally important if you are running a small to medium-sized business and want to ensure the integrity of your financial data.
How to Save an Excel Workbook as Read Only
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to lock an Excel spreadsheet or workbook with a password and make it read only.
How to Unprotect an Excel Workbook
What if you want to lift the read-only restriction and grant everyone editing privileges? Removing the Read-Only feature is an easy process and can be done with just a click of a button. All you’ll need to do is go through the same process again and uncheck the box that makes your Excel workbook Read-Only. The next time you open the workbook, it will not open in Read-Only mode, nor will it display the Read-Only restriction box.
Take Advantage of Excel File Encryption
Setting a password in Excel to protect any workbook is easy and self-explanatory. Nevertheless, it can give a great deal of control over who can access and/or edit a workbook. This can go a long way in maintaining data integrity. Now that you know how to make your Excel workbook Read-Only, the next things you can learn are using the Concatenate function and how to split cells in Excel. We also have a couple of Word tutorials for you – learn how to display one page at a time and how to add offline videos to Word documents. Liked this guide? Get our Excel keyboard shortcuts cheatsheet.
