In many cases, you may need to share your Excel worksheet with others so they can fill in the data. But what if you want to protect some specific cells by preventing any overwriting of them? But what if you also want someone to have edit access to a locked cell? Sound complicated? So, how do you use a password to lock the cells you want to lock and share the password only with the people you want to have edit access to the locked cells?
In this case, only people who know the password you set can edit your locked cells. If you share your password with someone else, they won't be able to edit it! Sound too good to be true? Well, then you’re in for a treat! In this article, we explain in detail how to selectively lock specific cells in an Excel worksheet. We also show you how to successfully unlock them when you need them. Hope you enjoyed reading this article.
Step 1: Assume you have the following Excel sheet, and you want to lock the 3 cells marked in the red box so that they cannot be edited without a password.
Step 2: First, click the Select All button located at the intersection of the row and column labels. After clicking this button, the entire Excel worksheet will be selected.
After that, right-click somewhere on the worksheet and click the "Format Cells" option from the right-click context menu.
Step 3: In the "Set CellFormat" window, make sure you are in "Protect" on the tab.
Now, uncheck the checkbox corresponding to option Locked. After everything is completed, click the OK button at the bottom.
Step 4: Next, select only those cells## that you want to lock #. In the example below, I only want to lock 3 cells, so I select those 3 cells by clicking and dragging them.
NOTE: You can select non-adjacent cells by selecting them and holding down the CTRL key.
Step 5: Next, Right-click Anywhere in the selected cell range, and then click the "CellFormat" option in the right-click context menu.
Step 6: Now in the "Set CellFormat" window, again make sure you are in " Protect" tab. But this time, make sure ##Locked checkbox is enabled. Click the OK
button to continue.
#Step 7
: Let’s lock the document now. To do this, click on the Review tab in the top ribbon.Under the REVIEW tab options, click the button Protect Sheet.
Step 8: Now in the "
Protect Sheet"window, in the "Password to unprotect the worksheet"Enter the password in the field. Be sure to remember this password as you will need it later to unlock your worksheet. After all is completed, click the OK button.
Step 9: In the next window, you will be asked to confirm the password you entered in the above step.
Confirmpassword by typing your password under the "Re-enter password" field to continue. Click the OK button.
Step 10: That’s it. If you double-click any locked cell now, you will receive a warning message stating that you cannot edit protected cells. You can close the warning dialog window by pressing the
OKbutton.
In the above section, we learned how to successfully lock a specific cell in an Excel worksheet. Now let's see how we can unlock them if we need to edit their values in the future.
Step 1: First, click on the Review tab in the top ribbon. Click the Unprotect Sheet button from the list of available options.
Step 2: In the next steps, you will be asked to enter the unit you previously locked grid password. Enter the same password and click the OK button.
Step 3: Magic! Locked cells are now unlocked and you can double-click them and edit them according to your choice.
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