Sometimes, you may want to hide one or more worksheets in an Excel workbook to prevent the data they contain from being viewed by others. After hiding, the data in the hidden worksheets will no longer be visible, but it can still be referenced by other worksheets. If you want to display the data again, you can show the hidden worksheets at any time. In this article, you will learn how to hide or show worksheets in Excel in C# and VB.NET using Spire.XLS for .NET library.
Install Spire.XLS for .NET
To begin with, you need to add the DLL files included in the Spire.XLS for .NET package as references in your .NET project. The DLL files can be either downloaded from this link or installed via NuGet.
PM> Install-Package Spire.XLS
Hide a Worksheet in Excel in C# and VB.NET
There can be two levels of worksheet hiding: hidden and very hidden. An end user can easily show a hidden worksheet using the unhide command of Excel, but if the worksheet is set as very hidden, he/she cannot make the sheet visible again via the Excel user interface.
In Spire.XLS for .NET, you can set a worksheet as hidden or very hidden by setting the Worksheet.Visibility property to WorksheetVisibility.Hidden or WorksheetVisibility.StrongHidden. Please note that you must leave at least one worksheet visible in an Excel workbook.
The following steps demonstrate how to set a worksheet as hidden or very hidden:
- Initialize an instance of the Workbook class.
- Load an Excel file through Workbook.LoadFromFile() method.
- Get a specific worksheet in the file by its index through Workbook.Worksheets[int] property.
- Set the worksheet as hidden or very hidden by setting the Worksheet.Visibility property to WorksheetVisibility.Hidden or WorksheetVisibility.StrongHidden.
- Save the result file using Workbook.SaveToFile() method.
- C#
- VB.NET
using Spire.Xls;
namespace HideWorksheetsInExcel
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Initialize an instance of the Workbook class
Workbook workbook = new Workbook();
//Load an Excel file
workbook.LoadFromFile("Sample.xlsx");
//Get the first worksheet
Worksheet sheet1 = workbook.Worksheets[0];
//Set the worksheet as hidden
sheet1.Visibility = WorksheetVisibility.Hidden;
//Get the second worksheet
Worksheet sheet2 = workbook.Worksheets[1];
//Set the worksheet as very hidden
sheet2.Visibility = WorksheetVisibility.StrongHidden;
//Save the result file
workbook.SaveToFile("HideWorksheets.xlsx", ExcelVersion.Version2013);
}
}
}
Show All Hidden Worksheets in Excel in C# and VB.NET
You can show a hidden worksheet in Excel by setting the Worksheet.Visibility property to WorksheetVisibility.Visible.
The following steps demonstrate how to show all hidden worksheets in an Excel file:
- Initialize an instance of the Workbook class.
- Load an Excel file through Workbook.LoadFromFile() method.
- Iterate through all worksheets in the Excel file.
- Find the hidden or very hidden worksheets, and then make them visible by setting the Worksheet.Visibility property to WorksheetVisibility.Visible.
- Save the result file using Workbook.SaveToFile() method.
- C#
- VB.NET
using Spire.Xls;
namespace ShowHiddenWorksheetsInExcel
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Initialize an instance of the Workbook class
Workbook workbook = new Workbook();
//Load an Excel file
workbook.LoadFromFile("HideWorksheets.xlsx");
//Iterate through all worksheets in the file
foreach (Worksheet sheet in workbook.Worksheets)
{
//Show hidden worksheets
if (sheet.Visibility == WorksheetVisibility.Hidden)
{
sheet.Visibility = WorksheetVisibility.Visible;
}
//Show very hidden worksheets
else if (sheet.Visibility == WorksheetVisibility.StrongHidden)
{
sheet.Visibility = WorksheetVisibility.Visible;
}
}
//Save the result file
workbook.SaveToFile("ShowHiddenWorksheets.xlsx", ExcelVersion.Version2013);
}
}
}
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