Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wanted to lock some cells in an Excel spreadsheet to protect them from overwriting? Well, you’re in the right place! In this blog post, we’ll go over the steps to protect certain cells in Excel 2013.
Let’s say you have a table with sales data from different employees, and you want to allow people to enter their own sales data but prevent them from overwriting the formulas, months, and names in the table. Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Lock all cells in the sheet
Click on the top left-hand corner of the sheet to select the whole spreadsheet. Then, right-click and choose “Format cells.” Check whether the “Locked” option has been selected on the Protection tab. This will lock all the cells in the sheet. Click on OK to move on to the next step.
Step 2: Unlock cells for editing
Now, you need to select the cells that you want people to be able to edit. Right-click again, choose “Format cells,” and untick the “Locked” box for those cells. This will leave them editable. Click on OK to confirm.
Step 3: Protect the sheet
To apply the rules that you set earlier, you need to activate the “Protect Sheet” function. Go to the Review tab, and click on the “Protect Sheet” button. If you want to, you can set up a password for security reasons. Click on OK to confirm.
Now, your spreadsheet is protected! The cells that can contain sales data can be edited, but the formulas, months, and names are read-only and cannot be overwritten.
If you want to undo the protection, go to the Review tab, click on “Unprotect Sheet,” and all the cells in the spreadsheet will be open for editing.
In conclusion, protecting certain cells in Excel 2013 is a simple process that can save you from accidental overwriting. By following the steps outlined above, you can easily lock and unlock cells as needed. We hope you found this blog post helpful!