Any Excel document can be reverse engineered by a talented Excel
programmer.

The tips here are good ones.

My approach:

1. Make the fonts white so that the worksheet looks empty to a novice
2. Add a sub that makes it so that when someone clicks on a cell that
they get sent to range A1 - That keeps someone from tabbing through the
cells and reading content from the formula bar.
3. Password protect the sheet.
4. Hide the sheet.

Keep in mind. The BEST way to protect data is to never store it in the
Workbook to begin with. Put the sensitive data in a Worksheet that
exists in a plugin.

Yes, I hear what you are saying about reverse engineering. I am worried
about the not too talented, but non-novice, programmer - someone about as
good as I was before I started talking to all you folks! The "very hidden"
idea, as one example, is probably enough to stymie such a user. I also think
that this kind of user could find my password within a macro, so I am trying
to avoid that, in another thread that I started just when I started this
one.

My client doesn't want every user to know of all the different deal options
that preferred clients of theirs sometimes get, hence the hiding of sheets,
etc. Also, some stuff will only confuse them - things like that, not the
compromise of data, per se, so I'm not sure the plug-in approach would help,
which is good because I have no idea what that is!!

I seem to recall that the white font still shows when you highlight the
cell, or something like that, something even a novice might notice.

But your tips are excellent. Thanks!
Dean

wrote in message
ups.com...
Any Excel document can be reverse engineered by a talented Excel
programmer.

The tips here are good ones.

My approach:

1. Make the fonts white so that the worksheet looks empty to a novice
2. Add a sub that makes it so that when someone clicks on a cell that
they get sent to range A1 - That keeps someone from tabbing through the
cells and reading content from the formula bar.
3. Password protect the sheet.
4. Hide the sheet.

Keep in mind. The BEST way to protect data is to never store it in the
Workbook to begin with. Put the sensitive data in a Worksheet that
exists in a plugin.

Put the data somewhere after row 500.

I seem to recall that the white font still shows when you highlight the
cell, or something like that, something even a novice might notice.

Absolutely - no matter what - do not put that kind of information into
the distributed worksheet.

You, or your employer, will live to regret it.

I did that once, I worked for a big 5 consulting firm - I didn't know
about AddIns. My Workbook application priced health care plans. A
client broke into the Worksheet and started a competing business. My
customer got fired and I got laid off.

Learn how to use AddIns. They aren't that complicated and that's why
Excel created AddIns - precisely for this sort of thing.

Put those hidden sheets into the AddIn.

Look up AddIn an any of Walkenbach's texts. Two or three pages.


My client doesn't want every user to know of all the different deal options
that preferred clients of theirs sometimes get, hence the hiding of sheets,
etc. Also, some stuff will only confuse them - things like that, not the
compromise of data, per se, so I'm not sure the plug-in approach would help,
which is good because I have no idea what that is!!