I'm protecting individual spreadsheets by locking certain cells and then
going to tools and doing protection and protect worksheet, but when I do
that, the autosum icon lightens and is inoperable. I only want certain cells
protected and want to be able to use all the icons on the bars (fomating,
bold, autosum) and would like to know how to accomplish that.

Thank you for any assistance.

Many functions become unavailable when sheets are protected.

You can enter a SUM function in an unlocked cell, just can't use the Autosum.

For functions like Bold and other formatting make sure when you protect the
sheet that you have Allow users to "Format cells" enabled.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:46:00 -0700, ron wrote:

I'm protecting individual spreadsheets by locking certain cells and then
going to tools and doing protection and protect worksheet, but when I do
that, the autosum icon lightens and is inoperable. I only want certain cells
protected and want to be able to use all the icons on the bars (fomating,
bold, autosum) and would like to know how to accomplish that.

Thank you for any assistance.

Thanks for the tip on checking formating cells - the bold works. But the
Autosum icon is really what I need to work - people who are not too computer
literate will be using this spreadsheet. I know they can click on a cell,
select fx on the formula bar, hightlight their columns, etc., but am afraid
it will be too complicated for them.

"Gord Dibben" wrote:

Many functions become unavailable when sheets are protected.

You can enter a SUM function in an unlocked cell, just can't use the Autosum.

For functions like Bold and other formatting make sure when you protect the
sheet that you have Allow users to "Format cells" enabled.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:46:00 -0700, ron wrote:

I'm protecting individual spreadsheets by locking certain cells and then
going to tools and doing protection and protect worksheet, but when I do
that, the autosum icon lightens and is inoperable. I only want certain cells
protected and want to be able to use all the icons on the bars (fomating,
bold, autosum) and would like to know how to accomplish that.

Thank you for any assistance.

How about you give them a button with a macro assigned?

Sub Sum_Range()
Set rng = Selection
Set rng1 = rng.Offset(rng.Rows.Count, 0).Resize(1, 1)
rng1.Formula = "=Sum(" & rng.Address & ")"
End Sub


Gord

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 05:16:41 -0700, ron wrote:

Thanks for the tip on checking formating cells - the bold works. But the
Autosum icon is really what I need to work - people who are not too computer
literate will be using this spreadsheet. I know they can click on a cell,
select fx on the formula bar, hightlight their columns, etc., but am afraid
it will be too complicated for them.

"Gord Dibben" wrote:

Many functions become unavailable when sheets are protected.

You can enter a SUM function in an unlocked cell, just can't use the Autosum.

For functions like Bold and other formatting make sure when you protect the
sheet that you have Allow users to "Format cells" enabled.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:46:00 -0700, ron wrote:

I'm protecting individual spreadsheets by locking certain cells and then
going to tools and doing protection and protect worksheet, but when I do
that, the autosum icon lightens and is inoperable. I only want certain cells
protected and want to be able to use all the icons on the bars (fomating,
bold, autosum) and would like to know how to accomplish that.

Thank you for any assistance.