Tip of the week # 481
17 April 2016


Prevent others from viewing a specific worksheet (Microsoft Excel) *

When you share a workbook with other users, you may want to hide a specific worksheet to prevent it from being seen or changed. You can then protect the worksheet using VBA, but there is a simple way of doing this without writing code.

Here's how:

  1. Right-click the worksheet you want to hide and click Hide.
  2. On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click on the Protect Workbook button.
  3. Be sure the Structure box is ticked and that the insertion point is located in the Password box. Enter a password of your choice and click on OK or press ENTER.
  4. Re-enter the password and click OK or press ENTER.

Only those users who know the password will now be able to unhide the sheet.

Here's how:

  1. On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click on the Protect Workbook button.
  2. Enter the password and click OK or press ENTER.
  3. Right-click on any of the sheets and click Unhide.
  4. In the Unhide dialog box, select the worksheet that is to be unhidden and click on the OK button.

By the way, do not confuse this feature with protecting your whole workbook by using a password. See tip_253.php for further details.


* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.