Excel file and read only

Have you ever stuck with the Excel read only error or cannot access read only document Excel issue? Mostly it is seen that Excel file read only error occurs meanwhile trying to open the Excel file which is downloaded from a network server, emails, and the internet.

If you too are dealing with the same issue then leave all your worries. This article will provide you with the best solutions to fix Excel file read only error.

SO, JUST GIVE THEM A TRY…!

What Is Excel Read Only File And How It’s Helpful?

Excel read-only file is one such file having attribute ‘read only’ turned on. Basically, such excel read-only file can be easily viewed and opened just like any other file but writing or saving changes on it is that allowed in it. So you can only read the file not write or save anything on it.

Excel file which is marked read-only, generally considered under great caution right before making any changes to it.

Many users take benefit of this Excel file read only feature to restrict the editing and formatting of their Excel document by any content reviewers.

Suppose if you don’t want that any content reviewer will make any type of modification in your document. Then make your Excel workbook read-only before handing over your document.

If any reviewers perform any changes to that Excel read-only file. In that case, modifications can only be saved if any new location or a new name is assigned to the file.

No doubt it’s a good feature..!

But, what if you are unable to open the read only Excel File. This will ultimately throw the following error message: Excel cannot access read only document. After the occurrence of this error, you are completely unable to access your Excel workbook. So, it’s important to fix Excel read only error to get back access to your Excel workbook.

Why Does My Excel File Keep Saying Read Only?

Before stepping into the fixes to resolve Excel read only error. It’s important to know about the reasons behind Excel worksheet showing read only error.

1# Spreadsheet Settings

Excel workbooks and spreadsheets can be applied with protection features to get easy prevention from any kind of changes.

As per the protection level, you may make it completely or partly Read Only. For this, you have to choose the”Unprotect” option within the review tab. If any user has enabled the protection with a password then it’s important for you to have that password to remove the read-only protection.

2# File Corruption

In many cases, it is seen that Excel file corruption also makes your Excel spreadsheet Read Only.

Even after checking all the setting and ensuring file location if you excel workbook still displaying the Excel read only error. Then it’s a clear sign that your Excel file got corrupted somehow and hence it denies getting open.

3# Location

Another very common reason for Excel read-only error is its location. If your Excel spreadsheet is within the network folder and you don’t have network permission to do any changes in the folder. In that case, your Excel spreadsheet worked as read-only. This means you can only view its data but can’t perform any editing into it.

Excel spreadsheet present on the locked USB stick, DVD CD-ROM, area also considered as Read Only. A spreadsheet that is sent as email attachments or previewed inside any email program is counted as Read Only.

Well in all the above cases, to fix Excel read only file error. You need to either move or save the spreadsheet into the folder having complete permission to make changes.

How To Fix ‘Excel Cannot Open Read-Only Documents’ Message?

Check out the following fixes to resolve ‘Excel Cannot Open Read-Only Documents’ error Message:

1# Change the Excel File Property Set

One very typical reason for the occurrence of Excel cannot open read-only documents’ message is Excel file property is set to read-only.

To solve this matter, you just need to uncheck the Excel ‘Read-only’ file property option.

Here are the following steps to uncheck the ‘Read-only’ attribute,

• Make a right-click on some specific Excel file
• From the available option, choose the ‘Properties’ tab.
• Remove the checkmark from the ‘Read-only’ attribute and tap the ‘OK’ option.

Check out whether the Excel read-only error is been resolved now or not.

2# Excel File Is In Read-Only Recommended

If you are opening a recommended read-only Excel file. Then you are asked to open your Excel workbook in read-only mode for making any modification in the Excel file.

Tap the yes option in the Excel read-only error message dialog box. If you don’t want to do any changes to your opened Excel file. Or else tap to ‘No’ options.

If you don’t want to get this read-only recommended on your Excel workbook then perform these below steps:

• Make a double tap on the Excel file. After then choose the No option to open it.
• Hit the File then Save As. In the opened save as window go to the Browse option.
• In the bottom section of the Save As dialog box, tap the Tools, and then choose the General Options.

• Within the General options, you have to uncheck the Read-only recommended check box. After then tap the OK option. Doing this will disable the read-only message in your Excel file.

3# Adjust the Antivirus Setting

Sometimes the read only error in Excel is also encountered due to the antivirus program. As it is seen that few anti-virus programs restrict the accessing of Excel spreadsheets and many other MS Office documents by opening them in ‘read-only’ mode.

To deal with such cases you need to make adjustments in the antivirus settings. So, that the antivirus will allow your Excel workbook to get open in normal mode and you can perform easy modifications in it.

Don’t forget to reopen your Excel workbook after making changes in your antivirus settings.

4# Remove the Excel Protected-View

Excel file which gets opened from a potentially unsafe location like the internet, email attachments, downloaded from any third party source, etc. are opened in protected view. This feature of Excel Protected-View restricts the user to make any modification in their opened Excel spreadsheet. So, you can turn off the Protected-View security warning messages in Excel and freely use the Excel file with the only read-only error.

5# Deactivate Or Renew Microsoft Office

Chances are also that your MS Office application is either reached in the deactivated state. Or maybe its subscription has been expired.

Maybe this makes your Excel application to show such ‘read-only’ error or encounter ‘reduced functionality mode.’

To deal with such an issue, you need to either activate the MS Office or just renew the subscription of MS Office.

After performing such an operation, make check whether the error ‘Excel cannot open read-only documents’ has now fixed or not.

6# Make A Fresh Copy Of Your Excel Document:

Well, there are so many reasons behind Excel Cannot Open Read-Only Documents. There are such situation occurs in which you can easily make changes in the Excel workbook but saving up your changes is not possible. So, in that situation, a quick solution is to choose the “save as” option.

As this option makes a copy of your Excel workbook with all your changes done. If you want to permanently fix the issue of “Unable To Save Excel File” then move the Excel spreadsheet.

But if accidentally you have losted up your Excel workbook content due to inability to save it. In that case recover MS Excel Lost content from Excel temp files.

7# Make Use Of Excel Repair Tool Software:

As we have already discussed above that among various reasons for Excel read only error; “corruption of Excel file” is the most common one. So, to troubleshoot Excel file corruption issues make use of the professional and reliable Excel Repair Software.

* Free version of the product only previews recoverable data.

The software is specially designed to fix any kind of corruption issue and Excel error. This tool also provides a lot of features that can easily help you to fix any kind of error and also recover the data quickly and easily without any hassle.

Conclusion:

After reading the above article now you can easily troubleshoot the ‘Excel cannot open read-only documents’ on your own. But if the read only Excel file error is because of the excel file corruption then fix the damaged Excel files by making use of Excel repair tool.

Let us know whether your Excel read only file error is been resolved after trying the above fixes or not. So don’t forget to share your experiences with us in our comment section. Besides, you can ask any kind of queries related to the Excel workbook.

Surely, read-only excel file could prevent accidental changes on it. But read-only mode could be removed or disabled as you wish anytime when you want to edit excel file?

I don’t know. But I think some options you have used to set excel workbook read only, would be able to remove this setting always. So that you can remove or disable read only in excel file. Now in this article, I will list several possible cases that make your workbook and worksheet read only and introduce how we can do to remove read only status from Excel file.

• Case 1: Excel file is made read-only by “Mark as Final”
• Case 2: Excel file becomes read-only recommended by “Save As”
• Case 3: Excel file is restricted modify and read only
• Case 4: Worksheet and Workbook structure is locked and read only

Case 1: Excel file is made read-only by “Mark as Final”

While you open an excel file that has been marked as final, you would see a message bar at the top of sheet window. To remove read only from excel file, you just need to click on “Edit Anyway” button on message bar.

Now you have been able to edit excel file and make any changes to worksheet or workbook.

Case 2: Excel file becomes read-only recommended by “Save As”

When a dialog appears and shows three options for you to choose after you double click the read-only excel file, just click “Yes” and you could open excel file in read-only mode.

Now if you make any changes on the excel file, and want to save, there would be a message that prompts you again to save a copy of the file and rename it.

1. Click OK and open Save As dialog. Then click “Tools > General Options” in Save As dialog.

2. Uncheck “Read-only recommended“ and click OK.

3. Back to Save As dialog and click “Save” button to make a copy of original excel file. From then on, the copied Excel file would be not read-only and could be used instead of original one. It means you have disabled read-only in Excel file.

Case 3: Excel file is restricted modify and read only

While you are trying to open excel file that is restricted modify, and a password is required for write access, instead of entering password, please just click “Read Only” button to open excel file as read only.

It seems you cannot do any changes on it, but you can save the read-only excel file as another one to remove modify password. So remove read only in excel file.

1. Click File > Save As, and click Save button in pop-up Save As dialog.

2. Click OK to save excel file to replace the read-only one.

Case 4: Worksheet and Workbook structure is locked and read only

While your excel file is read only and you know it is because worksheet and workbook structure is protected, it will be easy or difficult to disable read only. We don’t know.

If you know the password that protect worksheet and workbook, remove read only in excel file would be so easy.

1. Open your excel file in MS Excel and you can view all worksheet and its content.

2. Click Unprotect Sheet under Review > Changes group, and enter password to unprotect sheet one by one.

3. Click Protect Workbook in the same location and type password to unprotect workbook structure and windows.

4. Save excel file and read-only mode would be removed from excel file.

But if you don’t know protected password, disabling read only in Excel file would be a little difficult unless you could find a utility to directly remove password protection from excel workbook, such as iSunshare Workbook Unprotect Genius, which could directly and easily remove worksheet/workbook protected password with only one click.

Tips:

Probably your excel file is also protected with open password now besides above edit restrictions. Then just opening the excel file is a difficult thing, not to say removing read only mode in excel file. But if you want to disable excel file read only, removing or recovering excel file password to open the password protected excel file is necessary at first. Otherwise, you just could let excel file read-only all the time.

Related Articles:

• How to Unlock Encrypted Excel Spreadsheet without Password
• Forgot Excel Workbook 2010/2013 Password
• How to Disable Protected View for Office 2010 to Enable Editing
• How to Unprotect Excel Workbook without Password

Although cloud-based solutions and budget apps are trying to steal Excel’s thunder, it still remains the king of accounting, charting and data organization. With millions of people worldwide using MS Excel, many forget to utilize its formidable security feature: adding passwords and making it read-only.

This will ensure that the only people who can tamper with your spreadsheet are those you give express permission to do so, locking customization of your sheet behind a secure encrypted password. Here’s how to do it.

Why Lock an Excel Workbook

Protecting an Excel workbook with a password can work in two ways:

• Prevent unauthorized access to the workbook
• Restrict users from modifying the contents of the spreadsheet (makes it read only)

In both instances, you can protect an Excel workbook with a password to make it read only. This means users will be able to open the workbook and view the data but won’t be able to make any changes to the spreadsheet. This is vitally important if you are running a small to medium-sized business and want to ensure the integrity of your financial data.

How to Save an Excel Workbook as Read Only

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to lock an Excel spreadsheet or workbook with a password and make it read only.

1. Open the workbook you want to safeguard. Go to “File -> Save As” option in the menu.

1. Next, click “Browse” to bring up the “Save As” dialogue box.
2. In the “Save as type” dropdown, make sure you’re using a proprietary Excel format (Excel Workbook, Excel 97-2003 Workbook, Excel Add-in etc.), otherwise the password protection feature in the next step will be greyed out.

1. At the bottom of the box, click “Tools” option just next to the “Save” button. Click on “Tools” and a drop-down menu will open. Select and click “General options” in the drop-down menu.

1. Enter your desired password in the “Password to modify” box as illustrated below. If you have a password manager already installed, you can use it to generate a strong password for you and store it in the vault. Otherwise, you can use this guide on how to generate hard-to-crack passwords. With the password secured, check the box for “Read-Only recommended,” then click “OK.”

1. You’ll be prompted to confirm the password. Enter the same password, then click OK to complete the process. Lastly, click the “Save” button. Now, every time a user attempts to open the workbook, a pop-up notification box will appear with the following message.

1. Clicking the “Read-Only” button will open the document but in Read-Only mode. Only those you share the “password to modify” with will be able to make changes to the workbook.

How to Unprotect an Excel Workbook

What if you want to lift the read-only restriction and grant everyone editing privileges? Removing the Read-Only feature is an easy process and can be done with just a click of a button. All you’ll need to do is go through the same process again and uncheck the box that makes your Excel workbook Read-Only.

1. Click on “File -> Save As” and in the dialogue box that shows up, select “General Options” from the “Tools” dropdown menu next to the “Save” button.
2. Uncheck the “Read-Only recommended” box. Remove the password that you had set and click “Save” to apply the new changes.

The next time you open the workbook, it will not open in Read-Only mode, nor will it display the Read-Only restriction box.

Frequently Asked Questions

Take Advantage of Excel File Encryption

Setting a password in Excel to protect any workbook is easy and self-explanatory. Nevertheless, it can give a great deal of control over who can access and/or edit a workbook. This can go a long way in maintaining data integrity.

Now that you know how to make your Excel workbook Read-Only, the next things you can learn are using the Concatenate function and how to split cells in Excel. We also have a couple of Word tutorials for you – learn how to display one page at a time and how to add offline videos to Word documents.

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