You can actually protect the project from most people.

Next time you're in the VBE, select that project.
Then Tools|VBAProject Properties|Protection Tab

But this protection can be broken in a matter of seconds--if the user knows how.

But it does keep most out.

Colin_Bizfine wrote:

I had a very similar requirement with grouped columns.

Dave Peterson (thanks agin Dave) posted the following and it worked fine for
me. The only qualifiication is that someone who knows what they are doing
can edit the macro and see your password - not a problem in my case as I am
trying to protect the sheet from novices no experts!

'If you already have the outline applied, you can protect the worksheet in
code
(auto_open/workbook_open??).

Option Explicit
Sub auto_open()
With Worksheets("sheet1")
.Protect Password:="hi", userinterfaceonly:=True
.EnableOutlining = True
End With
End Sub

It needs to be reset each time you open the workbook. (excel doesn't remember
it after closing the workbook.)

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm'

"Robert Slattery" wrote:

I've created a worksheet that will be distributed to 300+ users in an
investment group. It contains formulas and computations in cells that could
easily be overwritten by spreadsheet novices, so I've protected the worksheet
so users can only edit the cells they need to for the sheet to return the
info they need. The problem is: after protecting the worksheet, Excel won't
allow the user to expand or collapse grouped rows that list detailed
information on each step of the calculations. This is inconvenient because
I'd like to give the users the ability to expand the spreadsheet to see
what's going on, but collapse the extra data for printing purposes. MS
Support said that this functionality wasn't available (but it should be), so
I'm curious if anyone has ideas for a good workaround? The spreadsheet can
be grabbed from www.realrobert.com/foreclosure/worksheet.xls - password is
blank to unlock. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

--

Dave Peterson