Protecting Cells

I would like to lock some collumns and yet change the formating on the unlocked cells mi other columns. Is there another way to protect cells other than locking cells and then protecting the worksheet?

1. What version of Excel are you using?
2. If you only lock certain cells/columns and then protect the worksheet, you will still be able to format the contents of the other unlocked cells/columns.

Hmmm, if you are changing the color based on certain criteria, then you could use conditional formatting and you won't need to unlock your sheet (e.g. cells in column B will be green if value <30, yellow if between 30 and 60 and red if > 60). Is that the case?

I believe in 2003, you also have a series of options when protecting the worksheet and one of these is to allow the formatting of cells. Would that work for you?

It would help to see an example of your workbook and know why you want to lock certain columns and keep others open (but still be able to format). There are other options (data validation and VBA) but they have their own drawbacks as well.

I don't remember how to show this problem as solved though.

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