Simple MS-Excel question

[bigred]

I want to protect or "lock" (ie read-only) certain cells on a worksheet that have formulas in them so nobody using it can change them. But when I try it says I can't do that unless I protect the entire worksheet....which means ALL the cells are locked.

How can I lock only specified cells on a worksheet? Anyone?

EDIT: never mind. As often is the case, I can look for the answer beforehand and not find.....but soon as I ask someone, I find it.

The answer is simple but makes no sense for it to work this way (then again we are talking Microsoft). Link here in case anyone is interested:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010548251033.aspx

 

[JR "BOB" Dobbs]

The beauty of this is that there is more than one way to do it, which allows for more elegant solutions to be presented. The "art" of doing this is to find the most elegant way. Here's a start...

Select all cells. Right click to Format Cells..., and go to the protection tab. Un-check the box to lock cells and click OK. Now select the cells with the formulas you want to protect and do the same process but in reverse (check the Locked option). Then protect the entire sheet and only those cells that you opted to protect will be unchangeable.

For extra points, do this with just the keyboard and no mouse

 

[bigred]

Um yeah that's what the link says.



I don't know of any other way to do it actually, but if there's an easier one I'm all ears. It's just kinda stoopid that you have to go through an extra step, ie you should be able to select the given cells and select "lock" and that's it.