Mac Forum / Applications / Excel / September 2007

Since this is a newsgroup dedicated to XL for Macintosh (hence the
".mac." in the newsgroup name), you may have a better chance of
receiving an appropriate answer on another group, perhaps

   microsoft.public.excel.misc

As you've discovered, protecting the worksheets doesn't prevent access -
it only prevents inadvertent entries to locked cells (inadvertent,
because even a neophyte can easily find ways to bypass worksheet
protection. See

   http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/removepwords.html

for details).

A better model would be to collate the data from the individual
salepeople's workbooks back into the main workbook rather than the other
way round. That way there won't be any link that the salesperson can
click. You can then password-protect the main workbook and only those
with the password can access everyone's data (but see

   http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/fileandvbapwords.html

to see how easy it is to bypass *that* password).