How to keep Excel Sheets and protected workbooks protected when opening in Numbers or Google Sheet

Question

I've created an Excel document with both protected and hidden Sheets, and the workbook itself protected. It needs to be used by many users in my company, but they can only edit a few cells, so everything else is hidden and password protected. However, when users open it in other applications, such as Numbers for Mac or Google Sheets, these protections are not there. All Sheets appear, even the ones that are hidden in Excel, and the password protection is not there. Is there a way to keep these protections in place when opening this Excel document in Numbers or Google Sheets?

Answer

Hi @Jose Luis Loperena

Excel’s sheet and workbook protection will not fully carry over when opened in Numbers or Google Sheets.

In Numbers, only basic cell protection is available, and workbook protection is not supported.

In Google Sheets, sheet protection can be recreated, but file encryption and workbook-level protection are not available.

As Allen Wyatt suggested in: Protecting a Workbook from Opening in Other Programs, the workarounds are using macros to generate important data, using PDF file format to protect data.

Or using OneDrive for Business or other clouds to share the file with their sharing settings to limit access (view-only or comment-only).

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How to keep Excel Sheets and protected workbooks protected when opening in Numbers or Google Sheet

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