If you have put a lot of formulas into a worksheet, you may not want other less experienced users to overwrite them.
- If you apply protection to cells in a worksheet, the contents of the cells cannot be changed until the protection is turned off.
- Locking cells has no effect unless the worksheet itself is protected.
- By default, when a new worksheet is started all the cells are locked, but the worksheet is not protected, so all cells can be seen as usual.
To protect a range or group of cells in a worksheet:
- Select those cells that you want to unlock.
- Click the Home tab, then in the Cells group, click the Format dropdown.
- Click Lock Cell. This is a toggle, so will unlock the cells.
To apply worksheet protection:
- Click the Review tab, then in the Protect group, click Protect Sheet.
- If you want to ensure that a password is required, type one into the Password to unprotect sheet box.
- Select what you will allow other users to do from the Allow all users of this worksheet to list. To ensure that they cannot type in locked cells, get rid of the tick by Select unlocked cells.
- Click OK.
Users of the worksheet will then be able to write in unlocked cells but will not be able to make changes to – or even click into – locked cells.
- To unprotect the worksheet again, click the Review tab, then in the Changes group, click Unprotect Sheet. If you assigned a password, you will be asked for it. Click OK.
- Note that passwords are case sensitive.
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