Unlock specific cells

[GrandpaScott]

Good morning,

I am working with a design suite that the University of Minnesota puts together for us contractors. It is used to design septic systems, and has several tabs that relate to the specific actions, and components regarding the design. I have to submit the design to the various units of government for permitting, and thus have to sign some of the sheets. The sheets have a signature blank at the bottom of the ones needing that signature.

The entire workbook is protected, as there are calculations being made, and only the blanks that call for information are active.

What I want to do is be able to use my stylus (Surface Book, and another Vaio with touch screen) to sign, in the signature blank.

In it's existing format, when I click on the "Draw" tab, on the taskbar, it is just greyed out, and won't let me do anything with the pen. I can Unprotect the sheet, and then I get the Draw features to highlight and can use the pen. I then have to re-protect the sheet (just as a matter of fact).

I would like to specify the signature cells to be unprotected, or at least allow the pen to be used on those cells.

I'm using Windows 10 and Office 365. The most recent versions of the workbook were updated within the last year, so probably a newer version of Excel was used. On the file page, it says it was created in 2008. The older versions didn't seem to limit the use of the stylus, with my Vaio (which shipped with Windows 8, and still worked with Windows 8.1). The issue arose when I got my Surface Book, which was this year, and came with Windows 10.

The forms can be found at septic.umn.edu >SSTS Professionals>Forms and Worksheets>OSTP Design Forms - 2011 Rule: Basic and Advanced Design forms, if anyone wants to see the form in action. The sheets that require signatures are: Prel Eval, Field Eval, Soil (1), Soil (2), and Design Summary

Thanks for any help/suggestions that you come up with!

 

[AtlantaAccessAndExcel]

The problem is that the "Draw" functionality is not available on protected sheets / workbooks. If you can add macros to the workbooks, you can create a button that unprotects, then protects the sheet. This will save you the time of typing the password twice, but there is no way to allowing drawing on a protected sheet. Mark

 

[GrandpaScott]

I'm looking for the solution to try to help the author(s) enable that function (albeit a selfish goal). I can pass your solution on to them, as I have been involved in testing these design forms, as they have evolved. I am a user, not a creator, so if you could help me with the macro process, I will pass that on.

Thanks, so much!
Scott

 

[AtlantaAccessAndExcel]

Scott -

The protect / unprotect VBA code is easily captured vie the "Record Macro" tab on the Developer tab. Given the myriad of options for protecting sheets, recording a macro, then co-opting the code, is the way to go.

Thanks,
Mark