Protecting a sheet

The Protect Sheet option allows you to protect the sheets and to control changes made by other users in a sheet as to prevent the unwanted changes to data and to restrict the editing abilities of other users. You can protect a sheet with or without a password. If you don’t use a password, anyone can unprotect the protected sheet.

To protect a sheet:

1. Go to the Protection tab, and click the Protect Sheet button on the top toolbar.

   or

   Right-click the sheet tab you want to protect, and select Protect from the list of options

   

2. In the Protect Sheet window that opens, enter and confirm the password, if you want to set a password to unprotect this sheet.

   

   The password cannot be restored if you lose or forget it. Please keep it in a safe place.

3. Check the boxes in the Allow all users of this sheet to list to select operations that users will be able to perform. The operations Select locked cells and Select unlocked cells are allowed by default.
   Operations a user may be allowed to perform.

   • Select locked cells
   • Select unlocked cells
   • Format cells
   • Format columns
   • Format rows
   • Insert columns
   • Insert rows
   • Insert hyperlink
   • Delete columns
   • Delete rows
   • Sort
   • Use Autofilter
   • Use PivotTable and PivotChart
   • Edit objects
   • Edit scenarios
4. click the Protect button to enable the protection. The Protect Sheet button on the top toolbar stays highlighted once the sheet is protected.

   

5. To unprotect the sheet:
   • click the Protect Sheet button,

     or

     right-click the protected sheet tab and select Unprotect from the list of options

     

   • Enter a password and click OK in the Unprotect Sheet window if prompted.