Locking ActiveX textbox from editing

**79p930** · 07-24-2011, 05:07 PM

I am using Excel 2007 and I have created a textbox from the Activex controls. I have multiline and vertical scroll enabled. The text within the textbox is merely for reference and I want users to have the ability to scroll through the information, but I do not want them to be able to change any of its contents. So far, I have not been able to find a way to prevent changes to the text. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
79p930

**Charles** · 07-24-2011, 05:48 PM

Hi,

Welcome to the forum. You can password protect the sheet and this will stop the user from changing the data in the textbox. This is assumed that the data in the textbox is linked to a cell.

**79p930** · 07-24-2011, 07:22 PM

I should have stated the textbox is not linked to another cell. I created the textbox and put a word doc into it. If I link it to another cell, I lose the information in the textbox.

**Charles** · 07-24-2011, 07:44 PM

79p930,

If you have multiline and scroll then you can set the "Enabled" property to False. You can the still use the scroll feature and the user can not change the text.

**79p930** · 07-25-2011, 06:49 AM

I have tried to set the Enabled property to false. It simply dulls the text. The scroll feature does not work with the property set to false. The scroll bar appears for a second, but is not functional. When I try and click on it, it simply goes away. Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Brian

**snb** · 07-25-2011, 07:53 AM

It's rather curious disabling a textbox that is meant explicitly for userinput.
You could use an activeX label, using it's caption property, or the commentproperty of a cell, or the statusbar...

**79p930** · 07-25-2011, 07:50 PM

The textbox is not for user input, it is for reference. It contains several pages of various codes associated with a specific job and is positioned in close proximity to the user input area of the worksheet. I wanted it to alleviate the need to carry around a hardcopy of the document or open a second Word doc. This way, users only have to open one document and can use the scrolling textbox as a reference to complete the main portion of the worksheet.

Thanks,
Brian