When you use Tools, Protect Worksheet, all of the cells become protected. How can you protect only a portion of the worksheet? In Episode 763, we take a look at this problem and protect only the formulas in a worksheet.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey. Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. I’m Bill Jelen.
Now, here’s a question that came in.
I'm sure I've dealt with this before but it's one of those really confusing things.
How do we protect just part of a spreadsheet and not all of the spreadsheet?
I think the reason that this is so difficult is it turns out that every cell -- all 16,000,000 in Excel 2003 or 17,000,000,000 cells in 2007 -- start out with a property called LOCKED set to true, and so when you're starting to think about protection, the very first thing you have to do is unlock all of the cells.
So, I choose this square dot here between A and 1 and that selects all of my cells.
Now, when I go to FORMAT, CELLS, on the PROTECTION tab, I uncheck LOCKED.
That's the first step.
That's the pre step.
Now, basically what we want to do, let's say we want to protect all of our formulas.
Well, I already have all of the cells selected so I'm going to use EDIT, GO TO, and then click SPECIAL.
Now, in 2007, this is on the HOME tab under FIND & SELECT, GO TO, SPECIAL, and I'm going to select just the formula cells.
Click OK.
Now, I'm going to mark these so we can see them.
Basically, all of the formula cells I want to have locked, and so I'm going to go into FORMAT, CELLS, on the PROTECTION tab, choose LOCKED.
Now, this is relocking just the formula cells, and the reason that I think it's a bit confusing is that LOCKED setting has no impact at all until we go to TOOLS, PROTECTION, and then PROTECT SHEET.
Once we protect the sheet, now, all of a sudden, we can come here and change, for example, the NUMBER OF STORES -- 85 -- but if we try and change one of these cells here by typing in it, it says it's protected and read-only.
Well, there you have it, a quick recap of how to protect some cells and not other cells.
Thanks for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Now, here’s a question that came in.
I'm sure I've dealt with this before but it's one of those really confusing things.
How do we protect just part of a spreadsheet and not all of the spreadsheet?
I think the reason that this is so difficult is it turns out that every cell -- all 16,000,000 in Excel 2003 or 17,000,000,000 cells in 2007 -- start out with a property called LOCKED set to true, and so when you're starting to think about protection, the very first thing you have to do is unlock all of the cells.
So, I choose this square dot here between A and 1 and that selects all of my cells.
Now, when I go to FORMAT, CELLS, on the PROTECTION tab, I uncheck LOCKED.
That's the first step.
That's the pre step.
Now, basically what we want to do, let's say we want to protect all of our formulas.
Well, I already have all of the cells selected so I'm going to use EDIT, GO TO, and then click SPECIAL.
Now, in 2007, this is on the HOME tab under FIND & SELECT, GO TO, SPECIAL, and I'm going to select just the formula cells.
Click OK.
Now, I'm going to mark these so we can see them.
Basically, all of the formula cells I want to have locked, and so I'm going to go into FORMAT, CELLS, on the PROTECTION tab, choose LOCKED.
Now, this is relocking just the formula cells, and the reason that I think it's a bit confusing is that LOCKED setting has no impact at all until we go to TOOLS, PROTECTION, and then PROTECT SHEET.
Once we protect the sheet, now, all of a sudden, we can come here and change, for example, the NUMBER OF STORES -- 85 -- but if we try and change one of these cells here by typing in it, it says it's protected and read-only.
Well, there you have it, a quick recap of how to protect some cells and not other cells.
Thanks for stopping by.
We'll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
