Protecting/securing cells in excel 2

[kidnos]

Hi all. I am trying to protect certain cells in my excel models. I dont want people to be able to see or adjust what is in some columns, lets say E, F, and G, but I want them to be able to modify columns A, B, C, and D. I am not entirely sure on how to do this. I understand I can hide certain areas, protect a sheet in general and then allow users to edit ranges. However,I dont think this is good enough b/c if someone copy's and pastes the information from the hidden and protected area into another sheet it actually pastes the information. This basically negates the previous step in protecting/securing the cells. Does anyone have an alternative method or a way to disable copying and pasting from a sheet? Your help is much appreciated, as always, thanks.

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Depending on the version of Excel, you can prevent SELECTION of cells, and other functionality.

The cells that you want to allow users to modify, must be UNLOCKED before the sheet is protected, using Format > Cells - Protection Tab.

Skip,

_{Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE!}

 

[Fenrirshowl]

Hi Skip

Prevent SELECTION? As in so you can't click on the cell(s) in question? Sounds interesting. I tried to find details on this by looking through the help files related to SELECT and SELECTION but couldn't see it- can you suggest another search work to return the appropriate file? (vsn: Excel 2003)

I did come across help files on PERMISSIONS which also looks interesting and I think I might have a play them, so thanks for your post (as I wouldn't have stumbled across it without it).

Fen

 

[jimr381]

When you go into protecting the sheet it will allow you to protect or not protect certain parts of the sheet. You access protection options via "Tools">>"Protection">>"Protect Sheet."

I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married..
________
28192

 

[SkipVought]

Fen ,

As I stated to the OP, it depends on the VERSION of Excel. In 2003, the Protect Sheet window has checkboxes for, among other things, to...
[tt]
Allow all usere of this worksheet to:
Select locked cells
Select unlocked cells
...
[/tt]


Skip,

_{Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE!}

 

[Fenrirshowl]

And there was me looking straight for the help files. Apologies for being dumb.

Fen

 

[AnotherHiggins]

kidnos:

I'd just like to warn you that Excel is not a very secure application. If someone really wants to see what you have hidden/locked, all they need to do is spend a few minutes with Google and they'll be able to get through the security you put in place.

But if you're in more of a "This is for internal use and I just don't want others to see the guts of the worksheet or mess anything up" situation, then you should be fine. If, on the other hand, you're sending sensitive information to a customer, you need to rethink your approach.



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[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[kidnos]

Thanks for the help everyone. It is actually being sent to clients so I may have to rethink the approach. Thanks again