Most of us know that sinking feeling of looking at an old spreadsheet where the sheets or the workbook structure are password-protected, and realising that we have absolutely no idea what is the correct password! And if you can’t unprotect some or all of the sheets, this also makes it difficult for Rainbow to do its job properly.

So the latest version 12.3 of Rainbow includes a Password Tool that can fix this problem, as you can see in the composite screenshot above. The Password Tool uses the same technology as the Deep Clean function that was added in Rainbow version 12.0, allowing it to edit the XML files that make up the spreadsheet. So it doesn’t “crack” any passwords; it simply removes them by editing out the relevant XML code.

You’ll also see from the screenshot above that we have renamed what was the Hide/Protect function as the Security Manager. And we have similarly updated the names of the groups on the Rainbow ribbon, which are now Initial Overview (was The Basics), Detailed Analysis (was The Details), Management & Clean-Up (was My Files), and Colours (was My Colours). We hope this will make the layout of the ribbon menu a little clearer and more business-like.

And so the Password Tool now perfectly complements the functionality of the Security Manager. If you can’t unprotect sheets with the Security Manager because you don’t know the password, you can simply call on the Password Tool to fix the problem!