protect formatting but allow data entry
 

I would like to prevent any changes to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet except for
the contents of cells. Is there a way to protect the formating of a
worksheet, but still allow the cell contents to be entered, changed, copied,
and pasted?

Go to Format|Cells|Protection and uncheck Locked for all the cells you want
to be able to change (you can select multiple cells/rows/columns to do
this), then protect the sheet Tools|Protection|Protect Sheet. You can
password protect it if you wish.

Users will only be able to alter the contents of cells you have unlocked,
but all the formatting tools for the sheet will be locked.

--
Ian
--
"brucenikkm" wrote in message
...
I would like to prevent any changes to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet except for
the contents of cells. Is there a way to protect the formating of a
worksheet, but still allow the cell contents to be entered, changed,
copied,
and pasted?

Check out
Tools - Protection - Protect Sheet

"brucenikkm" wrote:

I would like to prevent any changes to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet except for
the contents of cells. Is there a way to protect the formating of a
worksheet, but still allow the cell contents to be entered, changed, copied,
and pasted?

I've already tried doing what you've suggested, but my problem goes a little
deeper than that. I have several columns in which completion dates are
entered by a number of different people. Each of the columns have unique
conditional formatting applied to them. When people need to enter the same
date in more than one column, they often enter the date in one column then
copy & paste it into other columns. Unfortunately, this also copies the
conditional formatting from the first column into the other columns.

I know that you can tell Excel to paste only the contents of a cell, but
most of the users of this spreadsheet are novices at best. Therefore, I
would like to be able to protect the entire spreadsheet from any formatting
changes and only allow changes to the contents of cells

"Ian" wrote:

Go to Format|Cells|Protection and uncheck Locked for all the cells you want
to be able to change (you can select multiple cells/rows/columns to do
this), then protect the sheet Tools|Protection|Protect Sheet. You can
password protect it if you wish.

Users will only be able to alter the contents of cells you have unlocked,
but all the formatting tools for the sheet will be locked.

--
Ian
--
"brucenikkm" wrote in message
...
I would like to prevent any changes to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet except for
the contents of cells. Is there a way to protect the formating of a
worksheet, but still allow the cell contents to be entered, changed,
copied,
and pasted?

The only thing I can think of is to write a macro which runs when the sheet
is changed to rewrite the conditional formatting.

--
Ian
--
"brucenikkm" wrote in message
...
I've already tried doing what you've suggested, but my problem goes a
little
deeper than that. I have several columns in which completion dates are
entered by a number of different people. Each of the columns have unique
conditional formatting applied to them. When people need to enter the
same
date in more than one column, they often enter the date in one column then
copy & paste it into other columns. Unfortunately, this also copies the
conditional formatting from the first column into the other columns.

I know that you can tell Excel to paste only the contents of a cell, but
most of the users of this spreadsheet are novices at best. Therefore, I
would like to be able to protect the entire spreadsheet from any
formatting
changes and only allow changes to the contents of cells

"Ian" wrote:

Go to Format|Cells|Protection and uncheck Locked for all the cells you
want
to be able to change (you can select multiple cells/rows/columns to do
this), then protect the sheet Tools|Protection|Protect Sheet. You can
password protect it if you wish.

Users will only be able to alter the contents of cells you have unlocked,
but all the formatting tools for the sheet will be locked.

--
Ian
--
"brucenikkm" wrote in message
...
I would like to prevent any changes to an Excel 2003 spreadsheet except
for
the contents of cells. Is there a way to protect the formating of a
worksheet, but still allow the cell contents to be entered, changed,
copied,
and pasted?