Hide Formula in Excel

Hiding formulas in excel is a method when we do not want the formula to be displayed in the formula bar when we click on a cell which has formulas in it, to do this we can simply format the cells and check the hidden checkbox and then protect the worksheet, this will prevent the formula to appear in the formula tab only the result of the formula will be visible.

Excel Hide Formulas (Table of Contents)

• Hide Formula in Excel
• How to Hide Formulas in Excel?

Hide Formulas in Excel

You must be kidding if you say you are an expert in excel and does not know how to show and hide formulas in excel.

In this article, I will take you through the process of hiding formulas in excel. The reason you want to hide the formula in excel could be you must have put in hard efforts to apply this formula or you want to restrict the user from playing with the formula.

The process of hiding the formula is very simple. Follow this article to learn the ways of hiding the formulas in excel.

How to Hide Formulas in Excel?

If you do not want your end users of the excel sheet to hamper the beautiful formula you out in then you must hide those formulas.

The most common way of hiding the formulas is by locking the particular cell and password protect the worksheet.

Steps to Hide Formulas in Excel

Let’s understand the steps to hide formulas in excel with examples.

The very first basic thing we need to do is “unlock all the cells in the active worksheet”. You must be wondering why you need to unlock all the cells in the worksheet where you did not even start the process of locking the cells in the worksheet.

The reason we need to unlock first is by default excel turned on Locked cell options in excel. At this point in time, we are still able to edit and manipulate the cells because we have not yet password protected the sheet.

Step 1: Select the entire worksheet by pressing shortcut key Ctrl + A.

Step 2: Now any of the cell rights click and select Format Cells or press Ctrl + 1.

Step 3: Once the above option is selected it will open the below dialogue box and select Protection.

Step 4: Once the Protection tab is selected uncheck the Locked option.

This will unlock all the cells in the worksheet. Remember this will unlock the cells in the active worksheet in all the remaining worksheets it remains locked only.

Step 5: If you observe as soon as I have unlocked the cells excel will notify me an error as Unprotected Formula.

Step 6: Select only the formula cells and lock it. In my worksheet, I have three formulas and I have selected all the three formulas.

Step 7: Open Format Cell and select the Protection tab and check Locked and Hidden option.

Note: If you have many formulas in excel worksheet you want to select each one of them then you need to follow below steps.

Step 7.1: Press F5 (shortcut key to Go to Special) and select Special.

Step 7.2: This will open up the below dialogue box. Select Formulas and click Ok. This would select all the formula cells in the worksheet.

Now it has selected all the formula cells in the entire worksheet.

Step 8: Once the formula cells are selected and locked and hidden. Protect the sheet. Go to Review Tab and Protect Sheet.

Step 9: Click on Protect Sheet, the dialogue box will open up. Select only Select locked cells and select unlocked cells.

Type your password carefully. Because you cannot edit those cells if you forget the password.

Step 10: Click on OK. It will again ask you to confirm the password. Enter the same password one more time.

Step 11: Click on Ok. Now your excel formulas and locked and protected with the password. If cannot edit the password without the password. If you try editing the formula excel will show the below warning message for you. And also formula bar not showing anything.

Things to Remember

• We can open the Go to special dialogue box by pressing F5 shortcut.
• Ctrl + 1 is the shortcut key to open the formatting options.
• Remember the password carefully otherwise you cannot unprotect the worksheet.
• Only the password known person can edit the formulas.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Hide Formula in excel. Here we discuss how to hide formula in excel using the protection tab to lock the cell along with practical examples. You may learn more about excel from the following articles –

• Protect Sheet in VBA
• Row Limit Excel
• Use Equations in Excel
• AutoFill Excel
• NORMDIST in Excel