prevent data entry into cell?

how do i prevent no data entry into a cell? my spreadsheet has some open
areas that i have "greyed out" cells to indicate no data entry - but how i
block them to prevent any data entry into the cell?

Lock the cells and protect the worksheet

Select the cells that you wish to UNLOCK via Format>Cells...>Protection and
un-check locked.

Now go to tools>protection>protect sheet... and supply a password is
desireable. You will now not be able to change the 'locked' cells

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
www.nickhodge.co.uk
[email protected]HIS


"keif" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> how do i prevent no data entry into a cell? my spreadsheet has some open
> areas that i have "greyed out" cells to indicate no data entry - but how i
> block them to prevent any data entry into the cell?

lock the cells you that want to prevent data entry, then protect the sheet.

"keif" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> how do i prevent no data entry into a cell? my spreadsheet has some open
> areas that i have "greyed out" cells to indicate no data entry - but how i
> block them to prevent any data entry into the cell?

There are a couple ways you can do this. Either Protect the Worksheet or use
Data Validation.

To Protect the worksheet, select each of your cells that you DO want data
entered into. Format the cells and choose "Unlock" from the Protection tab.
Then, select Tools --> Protection --> Protect Sheet. You may enter a
password or not, depending how secure you want the worksheet to be. Now only
the cells that you unlocked earlier will allow data to be entered.

To use Data Validation, select the cells that you DO NOT want data entered
into. Select Validation from the Data Menu. Under Allow, change "Any Value"
to "Text Length" and set to "Equal to" and 0. Now, any typing will be
prevented in those cells.

HTH,
Elkar


"keif" wrote:

> how do i prevent no data entry into a cell? my spreadsheet has some open
> areas that i have "greyed out" cells to indicate no data entry - but how i
> block them to prevent any data entry into the cell?