Warning:?
If you forget or lose your password, Microsoft cannot retrieve it for you.
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Don't think that a workbook or worksheet is safe just because you use a password. Please think twice before distributing Excel workbooks that may contain sensitive personal information (such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, employee ID cards, etc.). ).
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Table-level protection is not used as a safety function. It just prevents users from modifying locked cells in the worksheet.
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The following options can be used to protect Excel data:
File level: refers to the function of locking an Excel file by specifying a password, so that users cannot open or modify it. There are two options:
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File encryption: When this option is selected, specify a password and lock the Excel file. This prevents other users from opening the file. ?
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Set Password for Opening or Modifying Files: Specify a password for opening or modifying files. Use this option when you need to provide read-only or edit access for different users.
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Mark as final: Use this option if you want to mark the Excel file as final and prevent other users from making any further changes. For more information, see Add or Remove Protection in a Document, Workbook or Presentation.
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Restrict access: If your organization has the right to use Information Rights Management (IRM) for settings, you can apply any available IRM rights to documents. For more information, see Add or Remove Protection in a Document, Workbook or Presentation.
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Digital signature: You can add a digital signature to an Excel file. For more information, see Adding or Deleting Digital Signatures in Office Files.
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Attention:? To add a digital signature, you need a valid certificate issued by a certificate authority (CA).
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Workbook level: You can lock the structure of the workbook by specifying a password. Locking the workbook structure can prevent other users from adding, moving, deleting, hiding and renaming worksheets. For more information about protecting workbooks, see Protecting Workbooks.
Work surface: Sheet protection allows you to control how users work in sheets. You can specify specific actions that users can perform in the worksheet to ensure that all important data in the worksheet will not be affected. For example, you may want users to add only rows and columns, or just sort and use automatic filtering. When worksheet protection is enabled, you can protect cells, ranges, formulas, and other elements, such as ActiveX or form controls. ?
What level of protection should I use?
To control the access level of users to Excel files, use file-level protection. Suppose there is a weekly status report of team members in the Excel file. You don't want anyone outside the team to be able to open the file. There are two options to choose from:
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If you don't want others to open your file, please do the following: You can encrypt Excel files, which is the most commonly used technology. This basically means that you use a password lock, but no one can open it.
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If you want to enable read-only or edit access for different users, do the following: Maybe you want the manager in the workgroup to be able to edit the weekly status report, but the workgroup members should only have read-only access. You can protect Excel files by specifying two passwords: one for opening and the other for modifying. In the future, you can share the corresponding password with the * * * team to see the access rights they should grant.
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To control how users use worksheets in the workbook structure, use workbook-level protection. Suppose the status report workbook has multiple worksheets, and each worksheet is named after a team member. You want to make sure that every team member can add data to their worksheet, but you can't modify any worksheet in the workbook, whether you add a new worksheet or move a worksheet in the workbook.
To control how users work in a single worksheet, use worksheet-level protection. Suppose that each worksheet in a status report workbook contains data that all worksheets have, such as a header row or a specific report layout, and you really don't want anyone to change it. By protecting the worksheet, you can specify that users can only perform certain functions in the worksheet. For example, you can allow users to enter data, but you cannot delete rows or columns, or you can only insert hyperlinks or sort data.
Depending on your/your organization's needs, you can use one or more protection levels for Excel data. You can choose to use all available options or combinations of options, depending on the security level of Excel data you want. For example, you can choose to encrypt Excel files and enable workbook and worksheet protection, and only use worksheet protection for your personal workbook, so that you won't accidentally delete any formulas.