Best Way To Protect XLS Spreadsheet

**hjaynes** · 02-01-2011, 01:32 PM

I am building a website for mortgage brokers, realtors and business owners where I will be selling specific databases to them. The databases are in an Excel xls format. I know how to password protect an xls file. What I don't know is how to protect a document so if someone downloads it, they don't go into business competing with me by selling the same databases. Is there some way of protecting it so that the database can only be opened on that particular computer and no place else? I would put it in another format, but pdf is too difficult because it's way too much information and a lot of people could not open up other formats, i.e. dbf, etc.

Any feedback is GREATLY appreciated. Thanks again for any responses! I'm looking forward to using and hopefully contributing to this forum.

Harold

**royUK** · 02-01-2011, 01:50 PM

You can add code to lock it to a computer. However, macros would need to be enabled or else it won't work.

Anybody with the knowledge or software can remove any passwords you add almost instantly.

**hjaynes** · 02-02-2011, 11:11 AM

Thanks for your response. I am familiar with software that can solve passwords and captchas, I just was more concerned with the 98% of people that didn't. I'd hate to see someone compete with me (at least for a little while!) after compiling this list of information that is valuable to my target audience. I've found one program that will convert a spreadsheet into some sort of exe program I've found software called XLStoEXE where you can create a registration key w/license to keep from illegal copying but that would obviously not work on Macs (which I have) unless you have some sort of emulator.

I'll keep researching though and thanks for your response.

Harold