Locking Worksheet Names

If you are developing workbooks for others to use, you may want your worksheets to retain whatever names you give them. Excel normally allows users to change worksheet names, as desired. If you don't want them to change, the only way to prevent it is to lock the workbook. You can take these steps if you are using a version of Excel prior to Excel 2007:

1. Display the Protect Workbook dialog box. (Click here to see a related figure.) Do this by choosing Tools | Protection | Protect Workbook. (In Excel 2007 display the Protect Structure and Windows dialog box by displaying the Review tab of the ribbon and clicking Protect Workbook in the Changes group.)
2. Make sure that the Structure check box is selected.
3. Enter a password in the Password box.
4. Click on OK. Excel displays the Confirm Password dialog box, prompting you to reenter the password.
5. Reenter the password and click on OK.

The user can no longer make changes to the names of the worksheet tabs, nor to anything else that affects the structure of the workbook. (For instance, they cannot enter new worksheets or delete existing ones.)

If you want to protect the workbook under the control of a macro, then you can use this code:

ActiveWorkbook.Protect Password:="MyPassword", Structure:=True

All you need to do is provide password you want to use in place of the "MyPassword" example.