Forum Discussion
Excel Protected Sheet: Cells Still Editable Even Though They Aren’t in the Unlocked Range
I’m having an issue with sheet protection in Excel where certain cells remain editable even though they are not included in any of my configured Unlocked Ranges.
I have sheet protection enabled and have specifically configured the following ranges as editable:
A:E
G:G
J:J
P:BE
Based on that configuration, I would expect columns F, H:I, and K:O to be protected.
However, the behavior is inconsistent:
Column F/G is correctly locked and cannot be edited.
Columns K:O can still be edited, despite not being included in any of the Unlocked Ranges.
I’m trying to understand why F/G are respecting the protection as expected while K:O remain editable under seemingly the same protection configuration.
Just a thought,
Have the cells that are editable, that should be locked...been formatted to be "Locked" (i.e., the checkbox stating "locked" is checked for the cells) with format cells?
4 Replies
Yup, figured it out this morning, it was a format cells issue. Thank you!
Can you show all of range2. My guess is that there might be a typo like G1:GG56 and hence it would unlock a large area. If you click on each of those ranges it should highlight that range on sheet. Can you verify that each of those highlighted ranges are what you expect (i.e. when you click on Range2 it only highlights cells in column G)
It wont actually let me view that parameter. When I go to Format cells, there is no "Locked" parameter.
But I did figure out the fix this morning, and I believe you are correct.
I deleted the columns, and created new ones. The interesting thing about it, is that when I copied the original data over as Value only, it worked, but when I include formatting, it doesn't work. So I believe your idea is correct, but I cannot verify it.
Thank you for the response though!
Just a thought,
Have the cells that are editable, that should be locked...been formatted to be "Locked" (i.e., the checkbox stating "locked" is checked for the cells) with format cells?
