locking certain groups of cells

[Kukainis]

Hi,

I work with Excel 2010

I have a rather large sheet of data and I have divided it into 4 categories using Conditional Formatting. These categories are scrambled, meaning the first one doesn't fallow the second one and so on, instead, they are in a mixed sequence, so to speak. They can not be organized in any other fashion since it would defeat the purpose of my work.

I need to apply a different formula for each of these 4 categories but since the data is really huge I can't copy/paste the needed formula manually after each time a category changes. So I need some kind of locking function for the categories that I have applied the formula to already. I would use the Format Cells -> Protection -> Locked + Protect Sheet function but it turns out the automatic appliance of a formula, where I take the first cell in my sheet by the corner and pull it down to the bottom of my sheet don't work because when I pull my second formula over a protected cell, it gives an error (saying it's protected, hence you can't apply anything to it).

Is there perhaps another way to accomplish what I need (without doing it manually, of course) ?

[Fotis1991]

Hi.

Try this
Mark the area that you need.
Format Cells -> Protection -> Make it Unlock
Then
Tοols>Protection>Protect Sheet

[Kukainis]

Hi.

Try this
Mark the area that you need.
Format Cells -> Protection -> Make it Unlock
Then
Tοols>Protection>Protect Sheet

thanks for the quick response, but what you suggest is exactly the thing I tried out already, but it doesn't work for me for the reasons I explained above.

[Pauleyb]

Hard to truly envision what you are trying to do. Any way you can determine what category a row is? Then have a common formula that is really four formulas in one, and it would determine which of the four formulas to execute. Maybe a helper column to determine the category would make it easier.

Pauley