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Protect Tab

The Protect ribbon tab is the heart of VBA Padlock Studio. It hosts the entire protection lifecycle in three groups (Project, Build Project, and Advanced), taking you from a plain macro-enabled Office file to a professional, protected software product.

The Protect ribbon tab with its Project, Build Project and Advanced groups

🔄 The Standard Workflow

Section titled “🔄 The Standard Workflow”

Every project follows the same automatic path:

  1. Open: Load your Office file (Ctrl+O); the first open triggers an automatic analysis of your VBA.
  2. Review: Check the Protection Review to see which procedures move to the DLL and which stay in VBA, and override any decision.
  3. Adjust: Fine-tune Project Info and References if needed; the defaults work for most projects.
  4. Produce: Run Produce or Test Run to compile the DLLs and inject the wrappers into a protected copy of your document.
  5. Ship: Package everything with Distribution.

🧰 The Three Groups

Section titled “🧰 The Three Groups”

Project

File and analysis management.

  • Open Office File (Ctrl+O), Save All (Ctrl+S), Close Project
  • Project Info: identity, output, Security Code
  • References: constant libraries compiled into the DLL
  • Re-analyze: re-import VBA from the source file
  • View Report: open the Protection Review

See Also

Section titled “See Also”

Licensing Setup

Learn how to add activation keys and hardware locking. View Licensing →