How do I use Excel to block users from using cells?

Sometimes it is important to block users from parts of a spreadsheet so that they cannot accidentally edit the document. Without realising it, a user of a spreadsheet can type over important formulas preventing the sheet from calculating results correctly.

In Excel preventing these kind of accidents is managed by protecting important cells on a worksheet. To the end user when protection is enabled the result is certain cells can no longer be edited. Whole sheets of sensitive information can be hidden completely if required.

In normal use of Excel we can edit any cell in a sheet. This is because protection is not turned on by default. Interestingly all cells on a worksheet have their 'locked' setting ticked, ready for when you want to apply protection to your sheet.

You can see this if you right-click on any cell in a worksheet, choose Format Cells then click the Protection tab. All cells have the locked setting ticked. This doesn't affect the end user because the overall protection feature is not active.

When you do need to enable protection on a worksheet first decide which cells you would like your users to edit. Select these cells and set their protection setting to be unlocked.

This means that when protection is enabled in the workbook only these 'unlocked' cells will be editable. Everything else will be protected from edits.

Related forum posts:

Protecting a cell?

Hello, Further to my training course that i attended on Monday, please can you tell me where i can find the section on protection a cell, that prevents another user seeing what the sum is. I would appreciate it if you can let me know the answer. Kind Regards Steve

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Can I password protect a range within a worksheet?

can I password protect a range within a worksheet?

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Cell protection

How do i protect a cell once i have added the formula

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Password protection

How do you protect a worksheet

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Excel/not being able to view contents in a cell

How can you protect a cell from people knowing that there is text in it, but when in that cell, not being able to view the contents

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Cell Protection

Is there anyway to Lock/protect single cells with formula is a Spreadsheet without locking the whole spreadsheet? I have a worbook whic requires other users to put in a lot of data but I don't want them to edit the formulas by mistake so need to lock these?

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Protection

How do you protect a worksheet in Excel 2007

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Workbook protection

Hi, Is it possible to protect my workbook data from being hijacked by other people. I only want certain cells to be overtyped but at the same time I would like to keep my formulated cells to be locked? Thank you Hatice

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Locking a document

Think I need a revision of locking an excel document and creatinga password for certain fields.

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