Locking Cells in Excel

Locking cells in Excel becomes important to protect the contents of a cell in order to prevent any accidental deletion or to prevent anyone else from wrecking the integrity of calculations. If you have a complex formula, that you have worked on and it has been tried and tested properly, then it may be a good idea to block any further changes, so that a person, who does not understand the importance of it does not manipulate it. There are times, some of the cells are data input area, so that people do not enter too many values into the cell, you may want to protect the cells surrounding the data input cell. We will now see, how to lock cells together in Excel.

How to Lock Cells in Excel

There are two different methods, which can be implemented to lock cells in Microsoft Excel. The methods to be chosen, if you want to lock majority of the cells in Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or you want to lock only a small number of cells in the worksheet. It is important to note, that if you lock a cell and protect the worksheet, then you will not be able to type any data into the cell or modify the existing data or change any other attributes of the cell, for example cell formatting, etc.

Method # 1
With this method, you will lock the majority of the cells of the Windows spreadsheet. The steps that you will have to implement are as follows:

• When you want to lock a major part of the Excel spreadsheet, select the cells that you do not want to lock. If the cells, you do not want to lock are not adjacent to one another, hold down the CTRL key and click the cells, that you do not want to lock.
• Now go to the Format menu, then click on Cells, followed by the Protection tab.
• Now click to clear the check box Locked and then click on OK.
• Then go to the Tools menu and move over to the Protection tab, then click on Protect Sheet tab. If you want to protect the sheet further more, then you can also secure your spreadsheet with your password. At this stage, you will be asked for a password, give one if you want to and then click on OK.
• Now your spreadsheet is protected.

Method # 2
If there are certain particular cells, that you want to lock on the Excel spreadsheet, then this is the method, you will have to implement.

• Select the entire Excel spreadsheet, by clicking on Select All button (this is a gray rectangle located in the upper-left corner of the worksheet, where the headings row1 and column A headings meet). The other alternative is to press CTRL + A or CTRL + Shift + Spacebar.
• Now go to the Format menu, then go to Cells and click on Protection tab. Uncheck the checkbox Locked and then click on OK.
• Then select the cells, which are to be protected. If the cells are not located at adjacent locations, hold CTRL key and click on the cells, that you want to protect.
• Now go to the Format menu, click on Cells, followed by Protection tab. Check on the check box Locked and the click on OK.
• This is the last step, click on Tools menu, move the mouse over Protection and click on Protect Sheet. If the data is very important, you may want to give a password. You will be prompted for a password, if you want type in the password and then click on OK.

Before you get onto the task of locking cells in Excel, just a word of caution. If you give a password, you will have to remember, what the password is along with the case you have used to give the password, as passwords are case-sensitive. If you do forget the password, your work will be irretrievable. If protecting the Excel worksheet is not practical, then you will have to think about Worksheet_Change macro, that will sense, which cell was just changed.