unlocking a cell to edit it

hello,

i have an excel sheet that has a cell with a formula in it. This cell has been locked by the previous user.

I am unable to click on it and it because it is showing a #NAME? error, i need to edit it somehow. Is there some way i can edit it?

thanks

Is the document protected by a password?

If not:
Click on review tab, changes group, protect sheet and then unprotect sheet. Then right click on cell to be edited, format cell, click protection tab and unclick Locked box.

Hope that helps.


Mark.

hi mark
thanks very much for the response.

i clicked on

tools >> protection >> unprotect sheet

but it gave me a prompt asking for a password (which i don't know)

is there any way around this?

Do you know why it's showing the #Name error? Maybe the formula is using a function from and addin that you'll need to include or it's referencing a defined name region that has been deleted. You might be able to fix your problem without messing with that cell.

ChemistB

Its strange. I was working on one computer and it never showed this error. Then i moved to another computer and thats when the #name error started appearing

so maybe it is some sort of add in issue...

all the cell really does is show the difference between two other cells..

what type of addin can i try? or is there some way to 'hack' through and allow a direct edit?

thanks for all the help

Show us the exact formula in the cell and maybe we can help you.

ChemistB

The cell which contains the formula (the same cell which displays the #name error) is not clickable at all--i.e. it is as if that cell is totally frozen and i can not click on it or give it focus of any kind to see what the formula is

I think the cell was frozen in this way to prevent people from tampering with the formula...

The cells above and below it are editable and not frozen...

any ideas?

I'm stumped. Maybe it's not a cell but a combo box. :-/

ChemistB

victory!

i just checked an 'add in' and it started working!

thanks excel gurus for your time, i'll try to pay it forward

I don't know of away around the password protection, unless you can find who wrote the spreadsheet!

Is it possib;e that the cell showing the error is trying to get a value from a spreadsheet that was stored on the first computer you were working on. If it was linking to another spreadsheet on that computer, it obviously wouldn't work if you went to another computer?

Mark.