Lock Cells In Excel

Microsoft Excel gives you an option to lock cells to guard them against any unwanted or unplanned editing. When you choose to protect a worksheet in Excel, all cells go locked by default, which means it can’t be edited by anyone now.

In addition to this, if you need to lock only specific cells in a worksheet, you can do so using this amazing function. Do you have any idea how to lock cells in Excel? Have you done this before? For this, you will have to unlock all the cells first, then lock only particular cells and ranges before protecting the worksheet.

 Along with this, the function also gives you an option to enable specific users to edit your protected worksheet.

Let’s understand this function by the example given below;

Here are simple steps to protect cells in Excel 2010: How to Protect Cells in Excel?

Step 1

To enable Protect Sheet, first go to the Review Menu of your spreadsheet, then click on Protect Sheet Command.

As soon as we click on Protect sheet Command, Excel pops up a dialog box called Protect Sheet dialog box. In this box, you can choose various options that you want to make available when the worksheet protection is enabled. Even if you do not choose any of these options, Excel itself chooses the Protect Worksheet and Contents of Locked Cells check box by default.

Step 2

Choose any of the checkboxes listed in the Allow All Users of This Worksheet To list box that you wish to be functional when the worksheet protection is operational. These options can be any of the options given in the list such as Format Cells or Insert Columns.

The first two checkboxes for instance, ‘Locked Cells’ and ‘Unlocked Cells’ are by default selected. However, you can deselect either or both of the checkboxes as per your requirement.

Step 3

Protect your sheet by entering a password in the Password to Unprotected Sheet column.

Step 4

Now, you need to confirm your password that can be easily done by entering the exact same password in Confirm Password Dialog Box. After entering your password, click on the ‘Ok’ button.

 When you want to remove worksheet protection, click on Unprotect Sheet button available in the Changes group on the Review tab.

Unlocking of Cells

As in the beginning, we said you can protect your worksheet’s cell partially, which means you can protect changes in specific areas of the worksheet as per your requirement and let other cells open for editing.

 You always do not need to protect all cells of the worksheet. For instance, in a budget worksheet, you may need to make changes in cells where you enter the amount, but the rest of the file you may want to be protected so that you do not remove a title or formula accidentally you implemented in the worksheet.

To unlock protected cells in a worksheet, follow the steps given below.

· To unlock the protected sheet first, click on the Unprotected Sheet button located on the Review tab. Type your password, if prompted.

· Select the cells you want to open for edit in the protected worksheet.

· Now press Ctrl+1. It will open the format cells dialog box. Here you have to click on the protection tab. See the following image:

· Now click on the Locked check box given on the Protection tab and remove its checkmark.

· Now your specific cells are unlocked and the rest of the worksheet is still protected.

· In short, Locking Cells in Excel can help you to lock all cells and specific cells in a worksheet as per your need.