I have developed a weekly report format in Excel 2007. There are 12 other
offices that must submit information for the summarized weekly report that I
do. I sent each office a copy of the spreadsheet with all the appropriate
formatting already set up, and thought they could simply complete it each
week with new information, send it on to me via email, and I could
consolidate all into my one report. It isn't working very well - somehow the
formatting gets changed in the individual reports, and my summary report just
is a pain. Is there a way to lock the formatting on my spreadsheet, while
still allowing individual offices to input actual text?

Out2lnch,

Yes there is. You can protect each individual sheet in a workbook and you
can protect the whole workbook. When protecting, you can select several
options, i.e. "Select locked cells", "Select unlocked cells", "Format
cells", "Format columns", etc... (Sheet protection.....Workbook protection
will have different options). You will probably want "Format cells",
"Format columns", and "Format rows" turned off (already done by default).
You will also be able to enter a password, but it is not necessary.

I am not familiar with XL 2007, so I don't know where to tell you to look
for it. In XL 2002/2003 it is in ToolsProtection. Look up "Protection" in
Help.

HTH,

Conan Kelly




"Out2lnch" wrote in message
...
I have developed a weekly report format in Excel 2007. There are 12 other
offices that must submit information for the summarized weekly report that
I
do. I sent each office a copy of the spreadsheet with all the appropriate
formatting already set up, and thought they could simply complete it each
week with new information, send it on to me via email, and I could
consolidate all into my one report. It isn't working very well - somehow
the
formatting gets changed in the individual reports, and my summary report
just
is a pain. Is there a way to lock the formatting on my spreadsheet, while
still allowing individual offices to input actual text?