How to hide Excel cell data

1. Select the cells in the worksheet that you want to hide data on, and then click the Format button in the Cells group on the Start tab, and select the Format Cells option in the Drop-down list that opens, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Selecting the Format Cells option

2. Open the Number tab of the Format Cells dialog box, select the Custom option in the Category list box, and enter a 3 semicolon in the Type text box, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Enter a 3 semicolon in the Type text box

3. When you click the OK button to close the Format Cells dialog box, the data in the selected cells is hidden, as shown in Figure 3. The data in the cell is hidden, but it will still be visible in the formula bar, and to keep the data completely hidden, you need to continue with the following actions.

Figure 3 The data in the selected cell is hidden

4. Open the Format Cells dialog box again, check the Hide checkbox on the Protection tab, as shown in Figure 4, and then click OK to close the dialog box when you finish setting up.

Figure 4 Check the "Hide" checkbox

5, click the Format button and select the Protect Sheet option in the Open Drop-down list, as shown in Figure 5. The Protect Sheet dialog box opens, where you do not need to make any settings, and clicking the OK button closes the dialog box to enable protection of the worksheet, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 5 Selecting the Protect sheet option

Figure 6 The Protect Sheet dialog box

6, the data in the cell will be completely hidden, when you select a cell, the formula bar will not display the data values in the cell, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7 Cell data is completely hidden

Attention

To unhide cells, you should first remove protection from the worksheet by clicking the Undo Sheet Protection button in the change group on the Review tab. Then open the Format Cells dialog box, and in the Number tab, reformat the cell data in the original format. For this example, select the Custom option in the Category list, and in the Type list, select the original g/General format option for the data.