Microsoft Office

Part I
Getting Started with Excel
Inspecting a document
The Office ➪ Prepare ➪ Inspect Document command displays the Document Inspector dialog box. This
feature can alert you to some potentially private information that may be contained in your workbook —
perhaps information that’s contained in hidden rows or columns or hidden worksheets.
If you plan on making a workbook available to a large audience, it’s an excellent idea to use the Document
Inspector for a final check.
Encrypting a document
Earlier in this chapter, in “Specifying a password,” I described how to set a password for a workbook. To
provide a higher level of security, you may prefer to encrypt your workbook using Office ➪ Prepare ➪
Encrypt Document. When you choose this command, you’ll be prompted for a password, which you must
enter twice.
Restricting permissions
Excel supports Information Rights Management (IRM), which allows you to restrict access to workbooks in
order to prevent sensitive information from being printed, forwarded, or copied.
This feature, accessed by using Office ➪ Prepare ➪ Restrict Permission, is fairly complex and requires additional
software. Consult the Help system for additional details.
Adding a digital signature
The Office ➪ Prepare ➪ Add A Digital Signature command allows you to “sign” a workbook.
CROSS-REF
Refer to Chapter 31 for more information about digital signatures.
Marking a document final
Choose Office ➪ Prepare ➪ Mark As Final to mark a workbook as finalized. A finalized document is
marked read-only, and you can’t edit or modify it. When you open a finalized document, the status bar displays
an additional icon, and all editing command are disabled.
Checking compatibility
When you save a workbook using an older file format, Excel displays its very helpful Compatibility Checker
dialog box, shown in Figure 8.8. You can also display this dialog box at any time by choosing Office ➪
Prepare ➪ Run Compatibility Checker.
It’s important to understand the limitations regarding version compatibility. Even though your colleague is
able to open your file, there is no guarantee that everything will function correctly or look the same. You
can’t expect features that are new to Excel 2007 to work in earlier versions. For example, you’ll find that a
SmartArt diagram is converted to a picture, table formatting is lost, and charts may look different. In addition,
formulas that use any of the new worksheet functions will return an error.
The Compatibility Checker identifies the elements of your workbook that will result in loss of functionality
or fidelity (cosmetics). To display the Compatibility Checker results in a more readable format, click Copy
To New Sheet.
For more information about file compatibility, see “Excel File Compatibility,” later in this chapter.
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