We have created a spreadsheet in Excel 2000 with cells that use a list of values (drop down menu). The cells are then locked and the sheet protected to force users to select only from the list of values. This works ok in 2000 however when we open the spreadsheet in 2003, the sheet throws an error saying the cell is protected and thus read only and do not allow the user to select from the list of values. There seems to be a different interpretation of locking/protection between Excel 2000 and Ecel 2003.

How can we protect these cells in 2003 to force users to only select from the list of values (we do not want anyone to be able to type anything in freetext.

Any advice much appreciated.

cheers
sal