Protecting Sheet Disables Tab Key

[[email protected]]

Hi All,

Is there a way to protect a sheet and still have the tab key enabled? I
would users of my spreadsheet to be able to tab through the cells but I
still want to be able to protect the content.

Thanks!
Kris

[Tom Ogilvy]

What version of Excel. If xl2002 or later, have you set protection to allow
them to select locked cells?

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi All,
>
> Is there a way to protect a sheet and still have the tab key enabled? I
> would users of my spreadsheet to be able to tab through the cells but I
> still want to be able to protect the content.
>
> Thanks!
> Kris
>

[Mark Lincoln]

In Excel 97 one can use the arrow keys to navigate among locked cells
on a protected sheet. I'm not sure if that works in later versions
without allowing the selection of locked cells as Tom noted.

[[email protected]]

Thank you for your responses Tom and Mark. I'm using Excel 2003 and I
have "Select locked cells" and "Select unlocked cells" checked but the
tab key is still disabled. The arrow keys work fine just not the tab
key. Any thoughts?

[Tom Ogilvy]

I was a little slow on the Uptake on that answer. My apologies.

When a worksheet is protected, the tab key is set up to tab through the
unlocked cells. This is by design and is usually what is desired to
facilitate interaction with the user. To the best of my knowledge, there
would be no way to turn this feature off. Since you apparently don't have
any unlocked cells, the tab key has nowhere to tab. Possibly you could
redefine the tab key using OnKey and use code to simulate the behavior you
want - this is untested and may not work either.


--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Thank you for your responses Tom and Mark. I'm using Excel 2003 and I
> have "Select locked cells" and "Select unlocked cells" checked but the
> tab key is still disabled. The arrow keys work fine just not the tab
> key. Any thoughts?
>

[[email protected]]

Thank you for the response Tom. There are a number of cells that the
user is allowed to edit on the sheet but the tab key doesn't work in
those cells either. If I understand your answer correctly, I guess
there's no way around this.

[Mark Lincoln]

Those cells must be unlocked in order to tab to them when the sheet is
locked.

Choose Format Cells for the cells in question and under the Protection
tab, uncheck "Locked." The Tab should move to the unlocked cells.

[Kris]

Awesome solution Mark! That's a porblem that's been bugging me for a
long time indeed - thank you very much indeed!

[DrNicket]

Thank you. That helped me in Office 365 (15).

Here's the Step-by-step for others that may come by...

1. Unprotect sheet.
2. Use CTRL+Click to select all cells you want to navigate with TAB.
3. Right click on one of them (making sure selection does not change) and select "Format Cells"
4. Protection tab is now visible. Uncheck "Locked"
5. Click OK
6. Protect Sheet again.

Voila!

[joejiang2001]

Perfect solution