Page 458 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

440 Protecting the Spreadsheet
OK in the Encrypt Document dialog box, reenter the new password in the Confirm Password dialog box and then click its OK button. Finally, after clos- ing the Encrypt Document dialog box, you simply click the Save option on the File menu in the Backstage view to save your changes and return to the regular worksheet window.
To change or delete the password for modifying the workbook, you must do this from the General Options dialog box. Choose File➪Save As (Alt+FA) and then, after indicating the place to save the file in the Save As screen, choose the General Options item from the Tools drop-down menu in the Save As dialog box. You then follow the same procedure for changing or deleting the password that’s entered into the Password to Modify text box in the General Options dialog box.
Protecting the Spreadsheet
After you have the worksheet the way you want it, you often need the help of Excel’s Protection feature to keep it that way. Nothing’s worse than having an inexperienced data entry operator doing major damage to the formulas and functions that you’ve worked so hard to build and validate. To keep
the formulas and standard text in a spreadsheet safe from any unwarranted changes, you need to protect the worksheet.
Before you start using the Protect Sheet and Protect Workbook command buttons on the Review tab of the Ribbon, you need to understand how protection works in Excel. All cells in the workbook are either locked or unlocked for editing and hidden or unhidden for viewing.
Whenever you begin a new spreadsheet, all the cells in the workbook have the locked and unhidden status. However, this status in and of itself means nothing until you turn on protection with the Protect Sheet and Protect Workbook command buttons on the Review tab. At that time, you are then prevented from making any editing changes to all locked cells and from viewing the contents of all hidden cells on the Formula bar when they con- tain the cell cursor.
What this means in practice is that, prior to turning on worksheet protection, you go through the spreadsheet removing the Locked protection format from all the cell ranges where you or your users need to be able to do data entry and editing even when the worksheet is protected. You also assign the Hidden protection format to all cell ranges in the spreadsheet where you don’t want the contents of the cell to be displayed when protection is turned on in the worksheet. Then, when that formatting is done, you activate protection for all the remaining Locked cells and block the Formula bar display for all the Hidden cells in the sheet.