I made some excel table that different people input info. I would
like to lock the format (boder, color, pattern etc). Other that input
info, often mess up the format look, so I would like to lock the
format. Any way to do that?

You can unlock the cell (format|cells|Protection tab, in xl2003 menus)
and protect the worksheet (tools|Protection|protect sheet)



lbbss wrote:

I made some excel table that different people input info. I would
like to lock the format (boder, color, pattern etc). Other that input
info, often mess up the format look, so I would like to lock the
format. Any way to do that?

--

Dave Peterson

Hi lbbs - did this solve your issue? I have the same issue with wanting to
protect formatting - fonts, columns, row sizes, etc on a shared spreadsheet
however the suggestion below didn't seem to work.



"Dave Peterson" wrote:

You can unlock the cell (format|cells|Protection tab, in xl2003 menus)
and protect the worksheet (tools|Protection|protect sheet)



lbbss wrote:

I made some excel table that different people input info. I would
like to lock the format (boder, color, pattern etc). Other that input
info, often mess up the format look, so I would like to lock the
format. Any way to do that?

--

Dave Peterson

On Nov 17, 11:57 pm, FranD wrote:
Hi lbbs - did this solve your issue? I have the same issue with wanting to
protect formatting - fonts, columns, row sizes, etc on a shared spreadsheet
however the suggestion below didn't seem to work.

what suggestions below, I don't see any below?

Which XL version are you using?
With 2003 you can select what to lock (columns, rows format) and I
suspect the same for 2007


--
Pecoflyer

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are you talking about protecting everything including values? I know
how to do that. I want to protect the format only.

I wonder if you found the answer.

If not try this.

Select the cells where you want to permit others to key in data. Go to
FORMAT/CELL.../PROTECTION. Untick LOCKED.

After doing the above protect the sheet us usual. While doing this do not
select (tick) anything other than SELECT UNLOCKED CELLS under ALLOW ALL USERS
OF THIS WORKSHEET in the pop-up window.

If this helps please click "YES" in this post.

Preman


"lbbss" wrote:

are you talking about protecting everything including values? I know
how to do that. I want to protect the format only.

After doing the above protect the sheet us usual. While doing this do not
select (tick) anything other than SELECT UNLOCKED CELLS under ALLOW ALL USERS
OF THIS WORKSHEET in the pop-up window.

Great that does pretty much does what I want. It will not let a user
change the format, which is good. The only way other users can change
the format is if they copy the entire cell and paste, then it will
allow them to change the format of the unlocked cell. And that often
happens at work (unintentionally), users copy a cell and end up copy
the border, and there fore messing up the table lines.

Well if the COPY and PASTE is done unintentionally by the users, you may wish
to have (although it may not be very effective) an INPUT MESSAGE on all
unlocked cells to caution the users and advise them to use PASTE SPECIAL
VALUES.



"lbbss" wrote:



After doing the above protect the sheet us usual. While doing this do not
select (tick) anything other than SELECT UNLOCKED CELLS under ALLOW ALL USERS
OF THIS WORKSHEET in the pop-up window.

Great that does pretty much does what I want. It will not let a user
change the format, which is good. The only way other users can change
the format is if they copy the entire cell and paste, then it will
allow them to change the format of the unlocked cell. And that often
happens at work (unintentionally), users copy a cell and end up copy
the border, and there fore messing up the table lines.