Excel password protect is a common security measure, allowing you to protect files in Excel format from unwanted access. In this article, we shortly describe how to select, input, protect and remove your Excel password.
Setting up an Excel Password Protect
Any modern office application including MS Office, LibreOffice and OpenOffice, can open an Excel file and set up a password for it. To create or change a password, you must do some thing like in the instructions described below:
- Open an Excel file that you need to protect with a preferred office application.
- Find a menu or a toolbar containing password options.
- For MS Excel, this is the "Review" toolbar.
- For LibreOffice, this is the "Properties" dialog (the "Security" tab) in the "File" menu.
- Enter a password for your document.
Note: MS Excel allows protecting files in Excel format not only as complete datasets (books) but also by separate leaves!
Excel Password Protect and Recovery
Always keep passwords for your crucial Excel files at hand! You can write these passwords somewhere, set a formula to decrypt a password when you need it, make a secret question for yourself that will help you remember a correct password, and so on.
Caveat! You take all these measures at your own risk! Office applications working with Excel format provide no methods for remembering a forgotten password!
Excel Password Remove by Force
These are some methods of Excel password remove, from using a dedicated utility to do it to save an Excel file as a ZIP file and then "unpack" it as separate sheets without protection. A typical removal utility will save your file as an .xls or .csv data file, removing a password from the resulting file.
Note: An action of forced removal of a password from an Excel file may be strictly illegal, depending of circumstances! Always check before cracking a file in Excel format that you have all permissions to view and use this file!
Keep your data securely with Excel passwords, and do not forget these passwords to avoid any unnecessary complexities in your life!