Applescript – Open password protected excel file

applescriptms officepassword

Is there a way for Applescript to open an Excel workbook (.xls) that is password protected?

I see that in the library there are functions to check if a workbook has password, but I do not know the proper syntax for opening a wb with password protection.

Tell application "Microsoft Excel"
  -- set theWb to path of .... etc.
  open theWb with password "abc" ? <--- what should go here?
end tell

Best Answer

There is a way to open a Excel workbook (xlsx, in my example) which is protected either the workbook and/or the sheet. You can use the following script:

set passwd to "1234" -- whatever you want
set theWbpath to "/Users/xxxxx/Desktop/number1.xlsx" -- example path
set theWb to "number1.xlsx" -- example file
set theSheet to "sheet1" -- example name of sheet
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    open theWbpath                
    unprotect workbook theWb ¬ --> 
        password passwd        --> workbook part, can be left out
    unprotect sheet theSheet ¬ --> 
        password passwd        --> sheet part, can be left out
end tell

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How to write a script to open multiple terminal tabs and execute code in them

This is a little bit hacky, but you can achieve this in AppleScript. If there is a predetermined number of tabs you want, and preset commands you wish to run, this isn't difficult.

tell application "Terminal"
    -- Activate it.
    activate

    set targetWindow to 0

    -- Get a window that's not busy.
    -- If there are no open windows, open one.
    if count of windows is greater than 0 then
        repeat with currentWindow in windows
            if currentWindow is not busy then
                set targetWindow to currentWindow
            end if
        end repeat
    else
        do script ""
        set targetWindow to window 1
    end if

    -- Do command 1.
    set firstCommand to "cd ~/Desktop; clear"
    do script firstCommand in targetWindow

    -- Open a new tab.
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down

    if count of windows is greater than 0 then
        repeat with currentWindow in windows
            if currentWindow is not busy then
                set targetWindow to currentWindow
            end if
        end repeat
    else
        do script ""
        set targetWindow to window 1
    end if

    -- Do command 2.
    set secondCommand to "cd /Applications; clear"
    do script secondCommand in targetWindow

    -- And so on...
end tell

Of course, replace firstCommand with whichever command you actually want to run, and so on. For whatever reason, Terminal doesn't really have an accessible way to create new tabs through AppleScript, so the long, hacky looking line in the middle just tells Terminal to type ⌘T to open that new tab, and then new commands will execute in it.

You can run this AppleScript as is, or use it in Automator to create a new service, which you can then execute from anywhere using a keyboard shortcut if you'd like.

Extras - If you want to fire some script/command in the newly opened terminal session, you can refer this

Using Applescript to paste the current date into a range of Excel cells

I think the code below speaks for itself. The do shell script command shouldn't be used inside another application tell block. Still I prefer a vanilla AppleScript solution as below which is fine to be used in any context in the script.

tell (current date) to set {_day, _month, _year} to {day, it's month, year}
set _day to text -2 thru -1 of ("00" & _day) -- add leading zeros if needed
set _month to text -2 thru -1 of ("00" & (_month as integer)) -- add leading zeros if needed
set _date to _day & "/" & _month & "/" & _year

tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    tell workbook 1
        tell worksheet 1
            set value of range "$A1:A10" to _date
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Best Answer

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How to write a script to open multiple terminal tabs and execute code in them

Using Applescript to paste the current date into a range of Excel cells

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