I don't think older versions of excel allowed you to do this and I don't think
you can get to the internals of excel to change this message.

But you could protect the worksheet and uncheck that "select locked cells"
option. Then the users won't be able to easily select those cells.

Emily Ladywell wrote:

How do I get Excel 2007 to show a customised message when I try to edit a
locked cell?

I would like it to say 'ha, ha - you can't change this cell' rarther than
the boring 'The cell or chart you are trying to change is protected and
therefore read only.......'

I'm sure older versions of Excel let you do this.

Thanks!

--

Dave Peterson