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Protecting the Spreadsheet 453
When you turn on protection for a workbook after selecting the Windows check box in the Protect Structure and Windows dialog box, Excel prevents you from changing the size or position of the workbook’s windows (not usu- ally something you need to control).
After you’ve enabled protection in a workbook, you can then turn it off
by choosing the Protect Structure and Windows option on the Unprotect Workbook command button’s drop-down menu or by pressing Alt+RPW again. If you’ve assigned a password to unprotect the workbook, you must accurately reproduce it in the Password text box in the Unprotect Workbook dialog box that then appears.
Protecting a shared workbook
Many times you will want to protect a workbook that you intend to share on a network. That way, you can allow simultaneous editing of the contents of its worksheets (assuming that you don’t also protect individual sheets), while at the same time preventing anybody but you from removing the Change tracking (and thus deleting the Change History log — see Book IV, Chapter 3).
If the workbook is not currently shared, you can both protect the workbook and share it by clicking the Protect and Share Workbook command button on the Ribbon’s Review tab or by pressing Alt+RO. Note that if the workbook is already shared, you must stop sharing the file before you can use this command. (See Book IV, Chapter 4, for details on how to do this.)
When you click the Protect and Share Workbook command button, Excel opens the Protect Shared Workbook dialog box, similar to the one shown
in Figure 1-10. In this dialog box, you select the Sharing with Track Changes check box to enable file sharing and to turn on the Change tracking. As soon as you select this check box, Excel makes available the Password (Optional) text box, where you can enter a password that must be supplied before you can stop sharing the workbook.
Figure 1-10:
Setting up protection for a shared workbook in the Protect Shared Workbook dialog box.
Book IV Chapter 1
Protecting Workbooks and Worksheet Data