Protecting a Single Worksheet

Tom has a workbook with a number of worksheets and he only wants to protect the first worksheet against changes. Consequently, he would like to save the workbook with all changes except any made to that first worksheet.

Excel provides the ability to protect individual worksheets in a workbook. Without going into too much detail (as this has been covered in other issues of ExcelTips), you can protect a worksheet by choosing, in Excel 2007, display the Home tab of the ribbon, click Format in the Cells group, and then choose Protect Sheet. In older versions of Excel you choose Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet. The options available in protecting a worksheet depend on the version of Excel you are using.

If this type of protection is not enough, then you are pretty much entering the realm of macros. Let's say that the name of the worksheet you want to protect is ImportantStuff. (Creative name; I know.) The idea would be to create a copy of the ImportantStuff worksheet as you want it to always appear. Name this copy something like KeepImportantStuff. Hide the KeepImportantStuff worksheet, and then use an AutoClose macro to (1) delete the ImportantStuff worksheet, since it may have been changed by the user; (2) duplicate the KeepImportantStuff worksheet, naming the copy ImportantStuff; and (3) saving and closing the workbook.