The only way to protect the confidential excel documents from unauthorized access by others is to password protect them. Microsoft office excel 2003 and the latest 2007 version have the facility of password protection. There are two types of password protection :

read only : which allows others to only read the excel spreadsheet and they can't edit them
password protected : users with correct password can only access

How to set password for excel Spreadsheets

Either you are using Microsoft office 2003 or 2007 , the method remains the same.

To enable read-only protection:

1. Open the file.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Security.
3. In the Password to modify box, type a password, and then click OK.
4. In the Reenter password to modify box, type the password again, and then click OK.

To password protect a file:

1. Open the file.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click Security.
3. In the Password to open box, type a password, and then click OK.
4. In the Reenter password to open box, type the password again, and then click OK.

You might have noticed so many users especially employees of a company will be using this feature to password protect confidential excel documents. Just imaging What will happen if they forget the password . No one can access the file without knowing the previous password. Even a careless mistake can make the employee to loose his job.

Excel password Recovery Tool

Although you can set password to the excel documents , you can't recover the password in case you forgot or lost the password. Never wonder now you can easily recover the lost password of excel documents with excel password recovery tools. With EXCEL password recovery tool you can easily recover your lost or forgotten password without much difficulty. You can even unlock password-encrypted Microsoft Excel documents quickly as possible.

In order to recover your lost or forgotten password just follow the simple steps :

First download and install the free office password recovery tool in your PC. Once you have finished installing the software , you can begin the recovery process. During the recovery process you can easily decrypt the spreadsheet or make it to display the original document password.

In this Excel password recovery tool , two options are available :