hiding sensitive information

**Inebriatedonkey** · 08-03-2012, 12:23 PM

Hi all,

Someone at work asked me how to keep information hidden in an excel spreadsheet - she sends round budgets, and wants to hide the payroll information.

My first thought was to hide the columns and then protect and hide the worksheet. I then realised that you can still see the information that is in the cells in a protected worksheet - if you type in the cell in the name box, the contents will come up in the formula bar.

I guess you could come up with workarounds for that (like putting the information in cell CA8131), but it's a bit clumsy. Is there any better, practical, relatively fool-proof way?

Thanks a lot

Adam

**abousetta** · 08-03-2012, 12:26 PM

Excel is not made to be 'fool-proof'. It can easily be hacked by anyone with some simple instructions found all over the internet. The protection mechanisms in Excel are to prevent 'accidental' exposure to hidden columns, sheets, etc. The best option might be to store the information in a very hidden sheet (hidden/ unhidden via vba), but again the protection isn't 100%

**TMS** · 08-03-2012, 12:38 PM

You can mark a cell as "hidden" on the Protection tab. That actually means that it will not show any formulae or text values in the formula bar.

So, if you lock the cells, hide the cells, protect the worksheet (primarily prevent people from accessing locked cells) and then set the visible state to xlSheetVeryHidden in the VBA properties for the sheet, it will stop the majority of people.

I'd be inclined to suggest that this sheet has links to a master sheet and only picks up information that is essential to the workbook.

And, of course, the VBA project must be locked for viewing with a password.

All that said, abousetta is absolutely right (and got the point in first) that Excel is inherently insecure, not in a poor self esteem sort of way, and protection can be broken relatively easily.

Regards, TMS

**Inebriatedonkey** · 08-03-2012, 01:40 PM

Hi,

Thanks a lot - the 'hidden' and 'xlSheetVeryHidden' things were exactly what I was looking for.

I take your point about excel not being secure - and I'll pass it on - but I just wanted to make sure that someone couldn't stumble across it by chance.

Adam

**abousetta** · 08-03-2012, 01:50 PM

If you are satisfied with the responses, then please mark the thread as solved.

Good luck.

abousetta

**rhoddie** · 08-03-2012, 02:03 PM

Why there are things that you have to hide in terms of payroll? If you don't have any idea about it you may look or visit the [URL="deleted[/URL]. Are you familiar with that?

**Richard Buttrey** · 08-03-2012, 02:24 PM

I have edited this post and will ban the poster since it was clearly advertising and nothing to do with this forum.

Originally Posted by rhoddie

Why there are things that you have to hide in terms of payroll? If you don't have any idea about it you may look or visit the . Are you familiar with that?