Visually pick out your protected cells
I’ve been using cell protection more often now that my spreadsheets are available on a network and several of my coworkers can make changes. It’s a great way to preserve my formulas. But here’s my question — how can I identify which cells I’ve protected? There must be a better way than trying to type new text in cell just to see if Excel prevents my changes!
Mary Denton
Administrative Assistant
You’re right. It’s difficult to get a handle on which cells you’ve protected and which cells anyone can edit freely. There’s no reason you should need to go through every cell in your worksheet and attempt to edit it — just to see if Excel locks you out. Imagine using that method in a worksheet with over a thousand rows!
Instead, you can use conditional formatting to apply a different color only to the cells currently protected. This technique makes it easy to visually pick out protected cells.
Unlock cells you want to protect
Let’s walk through an example so you can see how conditional formatting helps you identify protected cells. First, let’s protect the cells that include formulas in our sample worksheet.
To protect cells including formulas:
1. Launch Excel and open a workbook in which you want to protect cells.
2. Select the cells you do not want protected. We’ll select every cell except those with formulas, as shown in Figure A.
