Is there something I'm missing then.

I think so. I'd say that protection in general is there to keep people from
inadvertently mucking with your workbook. Say you set it up in a certain
way to get information or to help users calculate a result. You hide stuff
more as a matter of cosmetics than to keep it truly secret. It was never
intended as security.

Excel is Excel. If you automate an Excel workbook from another app or from
a DLL you still have a workbook that can be opened independently and
'explored'.

On the other hand if the sensitive data/calculations never gets to an Excel
workbook then that issue goes away. Say all of that was in a DLL and that
Excel is used only as a presentation vehicle of the final results. That's
the only answer I can think of but then you lose Excel's calculational
power. And you have to know how to write such a DLL.

--
Jim
"kfrost" wrote in message
...
| Thanks you Jim,
|
| Is there something I'm missing then. Any idea as to why you can take a
| document that is password protected with hidden cells/columns or rows and
| copy the entire document to a new workbook and where all the hidden,
| "protected" cells are then displayed?
|
| How do you prevent this? I would assume it would be possible because if
it
| wasn't why would they waste their time creating the password/proctection
| functionality.
|
| If not, what about building a Excel spreadsheet in Visual Studio with the
| office tool kit. Could you hard code and app to gain this functionality?
|
| Thanks.
|
| kris
|
|
|
| "Jim Rech" wrote:
|
| It's not possible. Any solution that prevents copying would rely on
macros.
| But a user could thwart that by disabling macros. Excel is simply not a
| good repository of sensitive information.
|
| --
| Jim
| "kfrost" wrote in message
| ...
| | Update:
| |
| | What I've found is the password is staying in place. However if you
| select
| | all the cells in the protected document and the copy them and past
them
| into
| | a different workbook. All the hidden cells are copied and displayed
in
| the
| | new work book. So it appears I'm looking for a way to disable the
| copy/cut
| | functionality from the worksheets.
| |
| | Any ideas?
| |
| |
| |
| | "kfrost" wrote:
| |
| | Hello,
| |
| | I have a customer who has sale people that have product spreadsheets
for
| | pricing. They have wholesale and retail pricing on the same sheet.
The
| | wholesale prices they hide and password protect, however, the
problem is
| you
| | can open the spreadsheet in read only mode and then save a copy of
it.
| Then
| | open the saved copy and the password protection is then removed.
| |
| | I'm trying to find a way to prevent this. However in searching it
| appears
| | that the password is pretty much insecure any way. So my thoughts
are
| using
| | MS office tools for VS and creating an Excel Project and hard coding
the
| | password into the document for them.
| |
| | First of all if anybody has a better suggestion on how to secure
these
| | hidden cells where only sales person have access to them, I would
love
| to
| | hear it. Secondly if building and compiling the app is the best
way,
| does
| | anybody have a sample for VB.Net?
| |
| | Thanks.
| |
| | kris
| |
| |
|
|
|