Aim: To access hidden sheets in Excel files with protected structures using Google Sheets.
In an earlier post, I described how to unhide Very Hidden Sheets in Excel. That method does not work if the workbook structure has been protected.
In this example, Sheet 2 has been hidden & attempting to unhide it using the “Visual Basic for Applications” Editor will result in an error.
One way of working around this is to upload the Excel file to Google Drive & open it with Google Sheets.
Click on the All Sheets menu at the bottom to show all sheets regardless of Excel’s visibility setting.
Click on the greyed-out Hidden Sheet to open it. Allow the file to save, then return to the Google Drive folder.
Download the newly created Google Sheets version of the file.
Open the downloaded file in Excel to see that the Hidden Sheet is now visible.
Fortunately for security, Google Sheets cannot be used to open Excel files that have been encrypted.
When opening an encrypted workbook in Excel, you will be prompted to enter a password, without which the file will not open.
Uploading an encrypted file to Google Drive is supported.
However, attempting to open the file using Google Sheets results in an error message.
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