How to: Protect Workbooks

Applies to
The information in this topic applies only to the specified Visual Studio Tools for Office projects and versions of Microsoft Office. Project type Document-level projects Application-level projects Microsoft Office version Excel 2003 Excel 2007 For more information, see Features Available by Application and Project Type.

You can protect a Microsoft Office Excel workbook so that users cannot add or delete worksheets, and also unprotect the workbook programmatically. You can optionally specify a password, indicate whether you want the structure protected (so users cannot move sheets around), and indicate whether you want the workbook's windows protected.

Protecting a workbook does not stop users from editing cells. To protect the data, you must protect the worksheets. For more information, see How to: Protect Worksheets.

The following code examples use a variable to contain a password that is obtained from the user.

Protecting a Workbook That Is Part of a Document-Level Customization

To protect a workbook

• Call the Protect method of the workbook and include a password. To use the following code example, run it in the ThisWorkbook class, not in a sheet class.

  Me.Protect(getPasswordFromUser)
  

  this.Protect(getPasswordFromUser, missing, missing);
  

To unprotect a workbook

• Call the Unprotect method, passing a password if it is required. To use the following code example, run it in the ThisWorkbook class, not in a sheet class.

  Me.Unprotect(getPasswordFromUser)
  

  this.Unprotect(getPasswordFromUser);
  

Protecting a Workbook by Using an Application-Level Add-In

To protect a workbook

• Call the Protect(Object, Object, Object) method of the workbook and include a password. This code example uses the active workbook. To use this example, run the code from the ThisAddIn class in your project.

  Me.Application.ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect(getPasswordFromUser)
  

  this.Application.ActiveWorkbook.Protect(getPasswordFromUser, missing, missing);
  

To unprotect a workbook

• Call the Unprotect(Object) method of the active workbook, passing a password if it is required. To use this example, run the code from the ThisAddIn class in your project.

  Me.Application.ActiveWorkbook.Protect(getPasswordFromUser)
  

  this.Application.ActiveWorkbook.Unprotect(getPasswordFromUser);
  

See Also

Tasks

How to: Set and Clear Workbook Passwords

How to: Protect Worksheets

How to: Hide Worksheets

Concepts

Working with Workbooks

The Variable missing and Optional Parameters in Office Solutions

Change History

Date	History	Reason
July 2008	Added a code example that can be used in an application-level add-in.	Customer feedback.