Sometimes, it gets very important to secure our Excel data. But, for presentations and collaborative teamwork, it is also needed to open the file and see the data. In this regard, you can make your Excel workbook read-only with a Password. By doing this, you can open the file and access the data to visualize. But, you can not make any changes to the file, as you can not save the file anymore. In this article, I will show you how to make an Excel file read-only with a password.

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How to Make Excel Read Only with Password

Steps to Make an Excel File Read Only with Password

Follow the step-by-step guidelines to make an Excel file read-only with a password.

Step 1: Go to ‘Tools’ Drop-Down from the ‘Save As’ Window

•  At first, click on the File tab from the ribbon.

• Click on the Save As option from the expanded File tab. Then click on Browse to choose your desired location for the file.

• Now, click on the Tools option from the Save As window and select General Options… from the listed options.

Step 2: Create a Password in the General Options Window

• Subsequently, the General Options window will open. Here, you can set a password to open and modify. Now, enter your password inside the Password to modify text box.

• At this time, the Confirm Password window will open. Reenter your password inside the text box.

Now, If you try to open the file, you will see that the file wants a password for modification. If you don’t have the password, you can view the file as read-only. Click on the Read Only button for that.

Now, on the top toolbar, the “Read-Only” word is appended with the file name. Thus, the file is now in read-only mode.

How to Exit the Read-Only Mode for a Password-Protected Excel File

Once you protect your Excel file as a read-only file with a password, you may need to exit the read-only mode again. There are two ways to do so based on whether you have the password or not.

Case 1: When You Have the Password

Follow the two quick steps.

Steps:

• To exit the read-only mode, one thing you can do is, to enter the correct password inside the Password text box of the Password window when opening the Excel file.
• And then, click on the OK button.

Thus, your file will be opened in normal mode now, which means you can edit or change anything you want and you can save it as well.

Here, you can see no “Read-Only” word is seen at the end of the file name on the top toolbar now.

Case 2: When You Do Not Have the Password

Now, if you do not have the password, but you want to modify the file, you can follow the steps below to accomplish this:

Steps:

• Follow the first 4 steps of making the file read-only.
• Now, leave the password text boxes blank and click on the Ok button from the General Options window. Subsequently, click on the Save button. Remember, the file name should be different than the read-only file’s name.

Thus, a new copy of the read-only file will be created. And, this would not be in the read-only mode anymore. You can change or edit anything you want in this file and you can save it as well.

Here, you can see no “Read-Only” word is seen at the end of the file name on the top toolbar now.

Conclusion

So, here I have described the step-by-step guidelines to make Excel read-only with a password. You can follow these easy steps to accomplish your targets in this regard. I hope you find this article a great help. If you have any further queries or recommendations, please feel free to contact me. And, visit ExcelDemy for many more articles like this.

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