Excel 2010-read only workbook

[athomascvmusa]

I have a workbook with 2 sheets in Excel 2010, and I'm trying to make the workbook read-only without editable fields. I have protected the workbook's structure under the review tab, made the document "marked as final" and went to the Save as\tools\general options\password to modify, and checked make read-only recommended. Opening the document in read-only still gives me the prompt to "edit anyway". Is there really no other way to make this document read only static document through Excel; other than right clicking the document and going to properties and checking read-only? This is a template that will be used frequently by a small group of people, but has dropdown lists with sensitive data that are still available for viewing. I can't really expect them to constantly be saving the document in read only through the properties window and opposed to just entering a quick password for editing. It seems like older versions of Excel did this with ease..

 

[starl]

You want it read-only, but you want the right users to be able to edit the file.
What you don't like is that when the workbook is opened, you get the banner for "Marked as Final" with the Edit Anyway button - correct?
If so - then don't mark as final. If you just do the Save As with Password to Modify, Read Only Recommended, users will get a prompt to enter the password to edit, or they can click Read Only.