Worksheet Protection and Un/Locking cells in Excel 2007

Dear Ian

Thank you for attending Excel 07 Intermediate course. I hope you enjoyed the course and found it helpful to carry out your day-to-day work activities.

Normally when you protect the whole worksheet then all the cells (which are locked by default) get protected as well. This means that you cannot enter or modify information as well as formatting on any cells.

In order for the users to enter information on certain cells you can unlock the cells and then protect your worksheet.

To unlock the cells you have to first select all the cells that you want to make the modification after the worksheet is protected and then use CTRL + 1 to get the Format cells dialog box. In the protection tab you uncheck the locked and then click OK.

Once you have done that you simply protect your sheet ( preferably with a password) and you will notice that you can enter data only on those cells that have been unlocked.

If you have a scenario where most of the cells need to be edited and only certain cells to be locked which I suspect you are asking for. Please the following steps:

Step 1: Use CTRL +A or click on the grey button on the left hand of Column A and above Row 1. This will select all your cells.
Step 2: You use CTRL + 1 to get to the Format cells.
Step 3: In the protection Tab un-tick the locked so that all the cells in the sheet are unlocked.
Step 4: Once you have done than select the specific cells that you want to be locked and again use the CTRL +1 to get to the format Cells dialog box. Put the tick on the locked.
Step 5: Protect your worksheet by choosing review tab on the ribbon and selected protect sheet.

You