Forcing users to fill in a cell before spreadsheet will save

[certain_death]

Hi all

Can anybody help

I have a spreadsheet that has a date field in it that I want users to fill in and save.

Unfortunately many users forget to fill this in so I want to force it somehow.

Is there anyway that I can get the spreadsheet to pop up with a message to say "fill in the date field" if they go to press save and it isnt filled in?

Hopefully Ive explained it enough.

Thanks in advance for any who read and offer advice
Cheers

[DonkeyOte]

You could use a BeforeSave event (VBA -- should be placed within ThisWorkbook)

Let's assume the cell that must be filled in (with a valid date) is on Sheet 1 and is cell A1

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[certain_death]

Perfect...

Many thanks indeed.

Is there any way of doing this without VB code?

Cheers
Mark

[DonkeyOte]

Nope -- I'm afraid VBA is a must.

Even then remember as things probably stand in your file a user can circumvent this by not enabling macros in the first instance.

Often an approach is to save the file down with all sheets hidden (except one "How to Enable Macros" sheet) with VBA (using xlVeryHidden property which means you can not unhide via Native XL) ... Then use the Workbook_Open event to display the sheets (and hide the instructions sheet)... thus if Macros are not enabled then the user can not alter the data on the hidden sheets... so although they could save the file they could not remove the date in Sheet1!A1 and save it.

[certain_death]

Thanks again

Very helpful

Cheers
Mark