Thanks a bunch, that was perfect. I didn't think of it since I hardly ever
use protection in the 2003 version. I found it pretty difficult. This
spreadsheet was sent to me and had it on. I'll check out the video because
the frustration level is pretty high right now and I'm usually one who can
find my way around pretty quickly. Of course I used the help before I came
here and while it told me all about precendents no where did I find it
addressing the disable of the options.

thanks agin

"Jim Rech" wrote:

If the sheet is protected (on the Review tab) Trace Precedents will be
disabled. Might be something else of course...

If you really want to know why MS went with the ribbon...

http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mi..._WMVs/UX09.wmv

I got this link from http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/

--
Jim
"Bill" wrote in message
...
|I don't know what's wrong. it's a simple spreadsheet. I love that MS
makes
| something easy difficult. If anyone knows how to enable this on simple
| spreadsheets that would be great, if you also have some idea why I had to
| waste a bunch of time finding out how to do something that was completely
| easy in 2003 that would be even cooler. It would give me some idea how to
| think about these things in 2007. oh yes I saved the spreadsheet from an
xls
| to xlsx and reopened it to get out of compatibility mode.