Part IV: Managing and Analyzing Data
Protecting a Worksheet
You may want to protect a worksheet for a variety of reasons. One common reason is to pre-
vent yourself or others from accidentally deleting formulas or other critical data. A typical
scenario is to protect a worksheet so that the data can be changed, but the formulas can’t
be.To protect a worksheet, activate the worksheet and choose Review ➪ Protect ➪ Protect
Sheet. Excel displays the Protect Sheet dialog box, as shown in Figure 34.1. Providing a
password is optional. If you enter a password, that password will be required to unprotect
the worksheet. If you accept the default options in the Protect Sheet dialog box (and if you
haven’t unlocked any cells), none of the cells on the worksheet can be modified.FIGURE 34.1
Use the Protect Sheet dialog box to protect a worksheet.To unprotect a protected sheet, choose Review ➪ Protect ➪ Unprotect Sheet. If the sheet
was protected with a password, you’re prompted to enter that password.Unlocking cells
In many cases, you’ll want to allow some cells to be changed when the worksheet is pro-
tected. For example, your worksheet may have some input cells that are used by formula
cells. In such a case, you would want the user to be able to change the input cells but not
the formula cells. Every cell has a Locked attribute, and that attribute determines whether
the cell can be changed when the sheet is protected.