Protecting the structure of the workbook file

You can apply one last level of protection to your spreadsheet files: protecting the entire workbook. When you protect the workbook, you ensure that its users can't modify the file's structure by adding, deleting, or even moving and renaming any of its worksheets. To protect your workbook, choose Tools → Protection → Protect Workbook to open the Protect Workbook dialog box.

The Protect Workbook dialog box contains two check boxes: Structure (which is automatically checked) and Windows (which is not selected). This dialog box also contains a Password (Optional) text box where you can enter a password that must be supplied before you can unprotect the workbook. Like every other password in Excel, the password to unprotect the workbook can be up to 255 characters - consisting of a combination of letters, numbers, and spaces, with all the letters being case sensitive - and must be replicated exactly before it is put into effect.

When you protect a workbook with the Structure check box selected, Excel prevents you from doing any of the following tasks to the file:

• Inserting new worksheets.
• Deleting existing worksheets.
• Renaming worksheets.
• Hiding or viewing hidden worksheets.
• Moving or copying worksheets to another workbook.
• Displaying the source data for a cell in a pivot table or displaying a table's page fields on separate worksheets.
• Creating a summary report with the Scenario Manager.

When you turn on protection for a workbook after selecting the Windows check box, Excel prevents you from changing the size or position of the workbook's windows (which is not usually something you need to control).

After you enable protection in a workbook, you can then turn it off by choosing Tools → Protection → Unprotect Workbook. If you assigned a password to unprotect the workbook, you must accurately reproduce it in the Password text box in the Unprotect Workbook dialog box that appears.