As you work in Excel, you may build files that you want to share with others. These might include complex formulas and other data that shouldn’t be altered. Fortunately, Excel offers a quick and easy way to secure your worksheets so that other users can’t make unauthorized edits. Let’s learn how to protect sheets in Microsoft Excel.
How to Protect Sheets in Excel
Excel spreadsheets often include multiple worksheets. Often, it’s useful to secure one or more of these worksheets to keep others from making accidental or unwanted changes to them. This helps preserve data integrity and ensures that all users benefit from the work you’ve put into your files.
If you want to keep others from making changes to your Excel sheets, you can use Excel’s Protect Sheet feature. To get started, go to the Review tab. You’ll find this on Excel’s ribbon. The ribbon is the series of menus and tabs across the top of your screen, including Home, Insert, Draw, and more.
On the Review tab, you’ll see the Protect Sheet button, just right of center. Go ahead and click on it. Excel will launch the Protect Sheet menu.
Here, you’ll have an array of options. By default, all cells on your selected worksheet are locked by default, meaning that other users can’t make changes to them. At the top, you have the option to set and verify a password. This is useful if you want others to make changes, but only with permission.
Below, you can specify exact permissions. Sometimes, of course, you may want other users to make certain changes, but not others. By checking and unchecking these boxes, you can precisely control what other users can do.
When you’re finished making your selections, click OK. Excel will protect the sheet, and you’ll see a lock icon appear on the worksheet name tab at the bottom of your screen.
As you can see, Excel’s Protect Sheet feature is a quick way to secure and control data inside your spreadsheets.
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