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Format Cells – Protection Tab
Practice Exercise 8 – Protection Tab
Locked cells attribute: The reason the Locked box is checked (FIGURE 1) is because all cells are locked by default, meaning that when you protect a sheet, all of the cells on the worksheet are locked. If you want to protect a sheet but also want to have some cells remain unlocked so you can regularly edit them, you must specify those cells to remain unlocked before you protect the sheet.
Here’s an example of protecting some of your data but not applying protection to all cells since you regularly edit them and need access to the cells to edit them and perform your daily work.
STEP 1: Highlight the data that you want to not protect so you are still able to edit them.
STEP 2: Right-button mouse click the highlighted cells. Select Format Cells from the shortcut menu.
STEP 3: On the Format Cells Protection sheet, uncheck the Locked box (FIGURE 2). Select the OK button.
STEP 4: Select the Review tab from the Ribbon. On the Ribbon, select the Protect Sheet icon located in the Protect Section of the Ribbon (FIGURE 3).
STEP 5: On the Protect Sheet dialog box, enter a password and select the OK button (FIGURE 4).
You will see another box appear in which you must re-enter the password to confirm (FIGURE 5).
Warning: Do not forget this password; write the password down and keep in safe storage.
STEP 6: If someone attempts to view the data (other than the cells you selected to remain unprotected) they will see this message appear on the screen (FIGURE 6).
STEP 7: You will still be able to edit the cells you selected to remain unprotected, as shown in FIGURE 7 in which we are editing the formula in B6, one of the unlocked cells specified earlier. Editing a cell can be performed by making that cell the active cell, and either select F2 or double-click the mouse.
To remove protection from the sheet perform the following:
STEP 8: On the Ribbon Review tab, select the Unprotect icon in the Protect section (FIGURE 8).
STEP 9: Enter the password on the Unprotect Sheet dialog box and select OK button (FIGURE 9).
STEP 10: Highlight the unprotected cells (cells A6, B6 and C6) . Right-button mouse click them and select Format Cells from the shortcut menu.
STEP 11: On the Format Cells Protection sheet, check the Locked box. Select OK button (FIGURE 10). Your sheet is now back to a normal status.
Hidden cells attribute: The reason the Hidden box is unchecked is because all cells are visible by default, meaning that when you protect a sheet, all of the cells on the worksheet are visible. If you want to protect a sheet and also prevent data in the cells from being viewed, you must specify those cells to remain hidden before you protect the sheet. The process of hiding cells is similar to protecting data described above except you must check the Hidden box.
It should be understood that the only thing that is hidden is the formula bar contents; the data can still be viewed in the cell. Thus, using the hidden feature really is applicable to formulas that you don’t want anyone to view.
END OF LESSON
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