We have shown you How to Require a Password to Open an Excel 2010 or 2007 Workbook, but what happens if you have Excel 2003? You missed the upgrade and I didn’t write a way for you to stop all those peeping Toms from staring at your precious workbook? Well don’t worry about it! Here is a great and easy way to set a password to open or modify an Excel workbook from 2003-2010.
How to Set the Password
First finish all the work you have done in your Excel file and go to the File or Office button and go to Save As, or open an Excel file and go to Save As.
Give your Excel file a name or the orginal name. Click on the Tools drop down menu near the Save button and click General Options.
Under the General Options menu enter a password in the Open and Modify field.
You will need to enter your password twice to make sure you enter it correctly then save your Excel file. Now try to open the file.
How to Remove the Password
If you don’t want the Passwords to Open or Modify, Open your Excel workbook and enter your passwords in. Then go to the Save As menu to the Tools drop down menu and remove the passwords from the General Optoins.
Removing and saving the workbook will allow you to open and modify the workbook without a password.
Common Problems
The best way to remove these Open and Modify passwords is to go through the General Options. But there is another way to just remove the Open password. If you go through the Excel 2007 Prepare menu and select Encrypt or Excel 2010 Info menu and click the dropdown for Protect Workbook, and remove the password and save it will remove just the Open password.
This means you still have the Modify passwords and will be prompted with a box similar to the one below.
To remove this reserved by error simply enter your password and go back to the General Options under the Save As menu under the Tools Drop down menu. Remove the password under modify and save your document.
Comments are closed.