WPS Auto Hide Content on Windows: Introduction

WPS Auto Hide Content is a privacy display control in WPS Spreadsheet; this guide covers 3 core tasks, with 3 available without membership and 0 membership-related items.

At a Glance

Metric	Value	Notes
Core tasks	3	Matches the number of rows in the How-to Index
Available without membership	3	Matches the number of Free rows in the index
Membership-related items	0	Matches the number of membership-related rows in the index

About This Feature

Overview

Auto Hide Content is a spreadsheet privacy feature in WPS Spreadsheet for Windows. It helps hide the visible content of selected protected ranges in collaborative sheets so unauthorized collaborators do not directly see sensitive values. After it is enabled, the target cells display as ●. Document owners, form fillers, and specified users can still view the original content.

This feature is useful when a shared sheet contains customer details, financial fields, internal notes, or long text that should not stay visible to every collaborator. It is also helpful when you want to keep column width stable while reducing direct exposure of sensitive content.

The main tasks covered in this guide are:

Turn on Auto Hide Content from the right-click menu for a selected range.
Turn on Auto Hide Content from the Collaboration tab and Protected Range menu.
Manage an existing hidden range with options such as ignoring the first few rows, assigning specific users, or turning the feature off.

System Requirements

Item	Requirement
Operating system	A Windows device that can run WPS Office normally
App version	It is recommended to use the latest version of WPS Office
Network	An internet connection is recommended for collaborative editing, assigned-user permissions, and cloud sync scenarios
Other	Sign in to a WPS account and use the feature in a collaborative spreadsheet when possible

Download & Installation

Item	Details
Official download	WPS Office Free Download
Installation method	Download the Windows installer and complete setup by following the on-screen prompts
Post-install check	Open WPS Spreadsheet, then open a collaborative sheet and check whether the related entry appears in the right-click menu or the Collaboration tab

Source: WPS download page

Compare with Alternatives

Dimension	WPS	Microsoft	Google	Notion	Adobe
Capability Summary	WPS can turn on Auto Hide Content for a selected range in a collaborative spreadsheet so unauthorized viewers see masked content while authorized users can still view the original values and manage visibility settings.	Excel supports locked cells, worksheet protection, and hidden formulas, but the official guidance focuses on editing protection and formula visibility rather than masked cell-content display for collaborators.	Google Sheets supports protected sheets and ranges and lets you limit who can edit them, but its official help notes that this is not a security measure and it does not describe masked cell-content display for collaborators.	Notion databases support permission control for database structure, content editing, and page-level access, but this is a database permission model rather than spreadsheet cell-level content masking.	Acrobat provides PDF redaction and hidden-information removal for published documents, which is useful for document privacy but not for live spreadsheet cell display control.
WPS Advantages	Advantage: WPS applies display-layer masking directly to selected spreadsheet ranges in the editing interface. Distinct: It also keeps visibility management for owners, fillers, and specified users in a collaboration workflow.	Compared with WPS: Excel official guidance emphasizes protection and hidden formulas, not collaborative masked display for selected spreadsheet cells.	Compared with WPS: Google Sheets emphasizes edit restrictions for ranges and sheets, not the same masked content display effect inside a collaborative spreadsheet.	Compared with WPS: Notion is stronger for database and page permissions, but it is not a traditional spreadsheet range-hiding workflow.	Compared with WPS: Acrobat is designed for permanent PDF redaction before sharing, not ongoing spreadsheet collaboration.
Official Source	—	Protect a worksheet	Protect, hide & edit sheets	Assign custom database permissions	Redact sensitive content in PDFs in Acrobat Pro

Overall Conclusion

If your main goal is to control how sensitive spreadsheet fields appear during collaboration, WPS is closer to that workflow because it focuses on masked display inside selected ranges. The other products mainly focus on edit permissions, database permissions, or document redaction, so their privacy controls serve related but different use cases.

Use Cases

No.	Scenario	Suitable for	Main challenge	How Auto Hide Content helps
1	Customer information entry	Sales and support teams	Shared sheets may contain phone numbers, addresses, or other fields that should not stay visible to every collaborator	Hide sensitive columns while keeping access for the responsible users
2	Financial collaboration	Finance staff and project owners	Multiple people need to fill in a sheet, but some amounts or notes should stay visible only to selected users	Hide key ranges and manage visibility through assigned-user settings
3	Header-friendly protected sheets	Data coordinators	Hiding all rows can make headers harder to read	Keep the first few rows visible with the ignore-first-rows option
4	Internal approval notes	Operations and admin teams	Collaborators need to process the sheet without seeing internal remarks directly	Hide note ranges and keep access only for the relevant reviewers
5	Long-text layout control	Spreadsheet maintainers	Long text can affect layout and readability in shared sheets	Mask visible content while keeping the underlying data in place

Membership & Benefits

Free vs WPS Premium

Capability	Free users	WPS Premium
Writer, Spreadsheet, and Presentation basics	✅ Available	✅ Available
Basic PDF features and PDF reading	✅ Available	✅ Available
Advanced PDF editing and more advanced tools	Partially limited	✅ Available
Cloud storage	1 GB	20 GB in listed plans on the pricing page
Multi-user sharing plans	❌ Not included	Available in sharing plans
AI tools	Limited access or usage	More included features or usage depending on plan

Source: WPS Office pricing page

Recommendations

Use case	Recommended plan	Why
You mainly need spreadsheet editing and Auto Hide Content	Free plan	The feature description shows no membership restriction, so the free plan fits everyday collaborative spreadsheet work
You also need more PDF tools, cloud storage, or multi-user sharing options	WPS Premium	A paid plan is more suitable when your workflow combines spreadsheets, PDF tools, and broader collaboration needs

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