How to Protect only certain Cells in Excel?

How to Protect only certain Cells, Columns or Rows in Excel?

By Mr.Byte • June 15, 2009

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excel2007 In the last post we saw how to Protect and Unprotect Excel sheets with password in general and in this post for advanced users who want just to protect only certain cells, columns, rows in an Excel sheet. This makes only certain sensitive cells as read-only while allowing the user to edit other cells or information.

So how to protect only certain cells in Excel 2007?

This tip is written for Excel 2007 but the idea maybe applied to earlier version like Excel 2003.

When you protect a sheet all the contents are protected because by default all the cells are set to be locked.

So Press the Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl + A to select all the cells of the sheet. Right click and choose Format cells. Go to the Protection tab and uncheck Locked option and click Ok.

Unlock all cells and columns in Excel 2007

Now select only the cells or columns, rows that you want to protect. Right click and choose Format cells again. Go to the protection tab and check Locked option and click Ok.

Protect only certain cells in Excel 2007

Go to Review tab, click Protect Sheet and protect the sheet using a password. See the previous post (How to Protect and Unprotect Excel Sheets) for more details.

Protect Sheet in Excel 2007

Now only certain cells of the sheet will be protected.

To unprotect, just go to the review tab, and click Unprotect sheet and enter the password.

Additional Tips: If you want users to be able to change the colors or fonts, choose format cells, columns and rows option while you protect the sheet.

Categories: How To, Software, Tips, Tutorial, Tweaks
Tags: Cells, Columns, Excel, Keyboard Shortcut Keys, MS Office, Office 2007, Password, Rows, Sheet

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7 Responses to “How to Protect only certain Cells, Columns or Rows in Excel?”

How to Protect and Unprotect Excel Sheets?
June 15, 2009 at 4:16 pm | Permalink

[...] Click here If you want to protect only certain cells in Excel. [...]
Vish
June 24, 2009 at 1:31 am | Permalink

thanks.. teh screen shots really helped..
How to Hide and Unhide Formulas in Excel?
July 1, 2009 at 8:56 pm | Permalink

[...] we looked on how to protect Excel sheets with password and also selectively protecting certain cells, columns or rows in Excel. Hiding and unhiding formulas is also a similar [...]
Josep Estrada
July 8, 2009 at 10:49 am | Permalink

it works……
nafisa
August 3, 2009 at 6:05 am | Permalink

what is the shortcut of inserting row or column in excel sheet
and also what is the formula of tax in excel sheet ?
simsophalla
March 2, 2010 at 7:13 pm | Permalink

Thanks it work full.
Jamie
February 7, 2012 at 4:53 am | Permalink

great!i did it.thanks