Friday, May 26, 2006

Protecting Cells in Excel

Microsoft Excel versions 2002 and prior had one simple cell protection process. Excel 2003 has quite a different process and I will cover that later.
In the earlier versions each cell has the ability to turn protection on or off. By default the protection is turned on. However it will not take affect until you lock the worksheet. Once you lock a worksheet only those cells that have been unlocked will be available for editing.
You can do this individually or for a selection of cells as follows:
Select the cell or cells that you want to unprotect and then choose Format | Cells from the menu and select the Protection Tab. Uncheck the Locked check box to unprotect the selected cells.

Now you need to protect the sheet. Do this by choosing Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet from the menu. Add a password (if required) and Click OK.

Now you should be able to test the locked and unlocked cells. Attempting to edit locked cells should return a message "The cell or chart you are trying to change is protected and therefore read-only. To modify a protected cell or chart, first remove protection using the Unprotect Sheet command (Tools menu, Protection submenu). You may be prompted for a password.
Unprotected cells should be available for editing.


Posted by: Jethro | 10:43 AM |