Protecting certain cells in a worksheet

[Fryan]

I have designed four forms for a small business just starting out. I have used Excel 2000 to create worksheets and want to protect everything except the fields that the user will fill in. When I try to "protect workbook", then "protect sheet", and then go back to "unlock" certain fields (like th help menu suggests)...... there is no menu selection for that.

It would seem that protecting the entire sheet is the only thing available? I would really like to protect everything EXCEPT what gets filled in, and then set the tab order appropriately. I had figured if it's possible in Access, then it must be possible in Excel??

Please advise if there is a way to do this.

Thanks in advance.

Fryan

 

[GorD]

Hi and welcome

In a worksheet you need to unlock the relevant cells first before protecting the sheet. Do that from the format cells menu and uncheck the locked box on the protection tab.

 

[Smitty]

Welcome to the Board!

Follow what GorD says, then protect the sheet and you'll get the result you want.

and then set the tab order appropriately

As for that, unlocked cells on a protected sheet will move right from the starting cell, then down to the next row and right, and so on...

Hope that helps,

Smitty

 

[Fryan]

THANK YOU !!! IT WORKS WONDERFULLY !!

The only thing I cannot find now is how to set TAB behavior in Excel. I can set ENTER behavior, but not TAB, unless I am missing it somewhere.

It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to be able to set this.

Thanks in advance....

Fryan

 

[Smitty]

The only thing I cannot find now is how to set TAB behavior in Excel. I can set ENTER behavior, but not TAB

You're not missing anything. Tab behavior on a protected sheet works like I explained. It goes column-->column, then down to the next unprotected row/cell, then column-->column, etc. (I'm probably doing a poor job of explaining that...)

To set it differently, you'd need to write a Change event, which can get tricky, especially if your worksheet setup will change.

Smitty

 

[Fryan]

Thanks......

no biggie........ just thought there was an easy way to do it, without dragging out all those VBA books from the archive..... (they are all '97) but should be relevant still I would think.

Thanks again for your help

Fryan