Not being able to select locked cells creates a whole slew of headaches. Not
the least of which is that it is possible (experimentally verified) that a
user by repeated clicking could insert a comment box into a locked cell that
they then cannot close, with the result that the comment box obscures data
behind it.

Jerry

"George Nicholson" wrote:

When locked cells can't be selected, then they can't have there formatting
or comments changed either.

Obviously.

HTH,

"Jerry W. Lewis" wrote in message
...
The "obvious" intent of unlocked cells on a locked sheet is that you
should
be able to do anything in them that you could do on an unlocked sheet
(add/delete/change data/formatting/comments, etc). The "obvious" intent
of
locked cells on a locked sheet is that you should not be able to change
anything in them (data/formatting/comments, etc).

When you protect a sheet with default options (allow users to select
cells),
you get the "obvious" locked behavior (can't change anything); but you do
NOT
get the "obvious" unlocked behavior (can't add/delete/change
formatting/comments, etc--all you can do is manually change data values,
not
even by Edit|Replace).

If you protect a sheet with the new (in 2002) option checked to allow
users
to "Format cells", you gain the "obvious" unlocked behavior of being able
to
reformat unlocked cells; but you loose the "obvious" locked behavior
preventing format changes on locked cells. Similarly, what seems to be
the
only way to permit add/delete/change of comments on unlocked cells seems
to
be to check the new (in 2002) option to allow users to "Edit objects", but
that eliminates the ability to protect comments in locked cells.

Have I missed something? Is there any way (obvious or unobvious) to get
to
what I consider the "obvious" intent of cell locking? Am I the only one
who
considers this intent to be obvious?

If necessary, I am perfectly willing to arrive at this intended state by
means of a macro (run once, not each time the workbook is opened), but I
need
to have both the protection of locked cells and unprotection of unlocked
cells apply to user interface access.

Jerry