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HOW TO PROTECT & HIDE EXCEL FORMULAS

Sometimes you need to share your Excel spreadsheets with others. If you use complex formulas, you may want to hide them to protect your intellectual property. Emilie Barnard offers advice on protecting and hiding such important formulas used within MS Excel.
(c) 2012 UC Regents, Emilie Barnard, February 21, 2012.

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Open MS Excel. Type in your necessary formulas. Press F5 to bring up the Go To dialogue box. Click Special on the dialogue box. Select the Formulas option, and make sure all four boxes are checked. Press OK. This selects all the cells in your worksheet that contain formulas. Under the Home tab, select Format under the Cell category. Select Format Cells.

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HOW TO PROTECT & HIDE EXCEL FORMULAS

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Under the Protection tab ensure that both Locked and Hidden are checked. 10. Press OK.

11. Now we must protect the sheet for these changes to go into effect. Under the Home tab, select Format under the Cell category. 12. Select Protect Sheet from the dropdown list. 13. Enter a password only you will know, and press OK. 14. Re-enter the password to confirm, and press OK. 15. Voil! Now when you share your spreadsheet, your formulas will not appear to other viewers.

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