To unlock the worksheet, go to Review –> Changes –> Protect Sheet. Once locked, you’ll notice that most of the options in the ribbon are unavailable, and if someone tries to change anything in the worksheet, it shows a prompt (as shown below): If you have used a password, it will ask you to reconfirm the password.
You can allow other options as well such as formatting or inserting rows/columns. By default, the first two boxes are checked that allows a user to select locked and unlocked cells. Enter a password (if you want to password protect the sheet).Make sure that you’ve checked the box ‘Protect worksheet and contents of locked cells’ (it’s checked by default).In the Changes group, click on Protect Sheet.Here are the steps to lock all the cells in a worksheet. Now, since we already know that all the cells are locked by default, all we need to do is to protect the entire worksheet. This essentially means that you want to lock the entire worksheet. Lock all the Cells in a Worksheet in Excel
Excel 2010 protect cells without protecting sheet how to#
Only when you have a combination of cells that are locked and protected can you truly prevent people from making changes. It doesn’t work until you also protect these cells. Protect the Entire Sheet (except a few cells)īefore we learn how to lock cells in Excel, you need to understand how it works on a conceptual level.Īll cells in Excel are locked by default.Lock all the Cells in a Worksheet in Excel.