Unhide workbook Excel

Simon Q says:
April 8, 2019 at 3:48 pm

The name of the very hidden sheet is visible in the VBA editor so, although locking the formula cells is a good idea, it is not 100% foolproof. If the very hidden sheet contains named ranges, the Name Manager also gives away the secret.
The following is convoluted, but you could:
- put your secret calculations in very hidden sheet #1
- use a second very hidden sheet #2 to refer only to the cells that you want the user to see
- refer to the sheet #2 cells in the visible sheet #3 that the user accesses
- go back to sheet #1 and add columns and rows to push the formula cells into obscure positions
- now add random numbers and text to the empty cells of sheet #1
- set the very hidden parameters for sheets #1 & #2
- lock the workbook structure
Even if the user finds the name of sheet #1, it is not possible to read the formulae and virtually impossible to find the real data as it is buried amongst the random stuff. Using the intermediate sheet #2 stops the user finding out where the 'good stuff' in sheet #1 is hidden.

When you are working with multiple Excel workbooks (files), instead of closing them you can hide them and then unhide them back when you need. In Excel, you have the option to hide and unhide a workbook just by clicking a button, and as I said, hiding a workbook doesn’t mean you are closing it.

In this tutorial, we will use the option of hiding and unhiding a workbook.

The workbook you are currently working in disappears.

Unhide a Workbook

1. To unhide a workbook, in the Ribbon, select View > Unhide.

If you have previously recorded any macros in Excel and stored them in the personal macro workbook, then you may see the PERSONAL.XLSB workbook as well as the book you have hidden.

Sometimes, you may hide some unwanted workbooks, but if you want to use them, how could you display them as soon as possible? This article explains how to unhide the hidden workbook windows in Excel step by step.

Unhide the hidden workbooks in Excel one by one

1. In Excel, click the View tab, then click Unhide in the Window group. See screenshot:

2. If there is only one hidden workbook, after clicking the Unhide command, the hidden workbook will show up. If there are multiple hidden workbooks, you will find them all listing in the Unhide dialog box after clicking the Unhide button in step 1. Select the workbook and click the OK button to display it. See screenshot:

Note: If you want to display all hidden workbooks, you must repeat the above operations.

Quickly unhide all the hidden workbooks in Excel with Kutools for Excel

As Excel does not support you with one option to unhide all the hidden workbooks in bulk, you can try the Unhide All Windows utility of Kutools for Excel. With this utility, you can show all hidden windows at the same time quickly.

Before applying Kutools for Excel, please download and install it firstly.

Click Kutools > Show & Hide > Unhide All Hidden Windows, see screenshot:

Now all hidden workbook windows are displayed.

Note: The number displaying after the function indicates the total number of hidden workbooks in your Excel. If there is no hidden workbook, the function will turns gray and cannot be clicked.

  If you want to have a free trial (30-day) of this utility, please click to download it, and then go to apply the operation according above steps.

Quickly unhide all hidden workbooks at the same time with Kutools for Excel

Related articles:

• Hide other sheets
• Unhide all hidden sheets
• Hide other workbooks
• Show hidden ranges (columns and rows)

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Comments (4)

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Tina

about 8 years ago

This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Thank you so much! I inadvertantly hide an important spreadsheet and did not know how to get it back!

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Mitesh S. Modi

about 8 years ago

This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Sir, I want to unhide text in a cell of excel sheet of windows 2007 . The value of a cell is conditionally format & I want to unhide it. Pl. reply me.

Why can't I unhide my Excel sheet?