Protecting formatted cells.

[Peter Ostermann]

Hi folks,

is it possible to unprotect cells but keep the
"formatting" protected? Just to conserve lines, that are
surrounding cells, etc.? Not to let them be overwritten
by mistake, when pasting copied values?

It would be very surprising to me if that would not
be possible in Excel (2k).

Peter

[gerry]

It is possible but may be not in the way you think. A cell is not
protected it is either locked or not. It is the sheet and/or workbook
that can be protected. When a sheet is protected it prevents any
formatting changes (although this is configurable on Excel 2003 when a
sheet is protected but by default not enabled). In addition it prevents
the values in cells from being altered if the cell is locked. By
default all cells are locked, so you have to specifically unlock all
cells thorough the format screen that you want to modify. This
affectively does what you want as an unlocked cell's value can be
altered but no fomatting can be changed on any cells on the sheet.
Typically this is used for a form where only data entry boxes are
unlocked. This also give a a good side effect in that whan a sheet is
protected hitting tab key steps from one unlocked cell to the next

[Peter Ostermann]

"gerry" <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Gerry,

> In addition it prevents
> the values in cells from being altered if the cell is locked. By
> default all cells are locked, so you have to specifically unlock all
> cells thorough the format screen that you want to modify.

Most of the cells got to be locked.
The making IMHO is: First unprotecting the sheet.
Second selecting all cells and locking them.

Next step is to protect the sheet (to "set" the
cell locking - I wonder if this step can be avoided).
Then unprotect it again.

Third is to unlock the cells which got to be open
for to allow their value being changed.
But this removes also the locking of the cells
formatting and by that the protection against
overwriting the format.

> This
> affectively does what you want as an unlocked cell's value can be
> altered but no formatting can be changed on any cells on the sheet.

It is not the fact. Please point out what is wrong in my above
description.

> Typically this is used for a form where only data entry boxes are
> unlocked. This also give a good side effect in that whan a sheet is
> protected hitting tab key steps from one unlocked cell to the next
>

[Peter Ostermann]

"gerry" <[email protected]> wrote
...

>By default all cells are locked, so you have to specifically unlock all
> cells thorough the format screen that you want to modify. This
> affectively does what you want as an unlocked cell's value can be
> altered but no fomatting can be changed on any cells on the sheet.

What do you mean with "format screen" ?