Here are the steps to hide formulas in locked cells: While this isn’t an issue in most cases, but if you don’t want the formula to be visible, you need to hide it. However, if that cell is selected, the formula in the cell would be visible in the formula bar. When you lock formulas in Excel, the user can’t make any changes to the cells with formulas. If the user tries to change the cells, he/she will get a prompt as shown below: Once you are done with the above four steps, all the cells that have formulas would be locked, and the user wouldn’t be able to change anything in it.
This will open the format cells dialog box.
OPENOFFICE LOCK COLUMN HOW TO
Now that I have outlined the steps above, let’s dive in and see how to do this (and more importantly, why we must do this): Step 1: Select All the Cells and Unlock it Select all the cells that have formulas (using Go To Special).Here are the steps to lock formulas in Excel (explained in detail later on): This also means that if a cell is not locked and you protect it, the user would be able to make changes. Only when you protect the locked cells can you truly restrict the user from making changes. For example, if you’re sending a workbook to your manager for review, you may want to allow him to add his comments or change some cells.Ī better workaround to this is to lock only those cells that have formulas in it.īy default, all the cells are locked in Excel. However, doing this would prevent the user from making any changes to the worksheet. One of the ways to prevent this from happening is to lock the worksheet and all the cells. The chances of such errors increase multifold when you share a file with colleagues or managers or clients. But if you are not, it may lead to some erroneous results.Īnd let me tell you this, errors in Excel have cost millions to companies (read this or this). Now you’ll be lucky if you’re able to spot the error and correct it.
OPENOFFICE LOCK COLUMN FULL
You are going through a worksheet full of formulas, and you accidentally hit the delete key, or backspace key, or some other number/alphabet key.
While this makes it convenient to create formulas in Excel, it comes with a few disadvantages as well. You can easily edit a formula through the formula bar or directly in the cell. Watch Video – How to Lock Formulas in ExcelĮxcel formulas are easy to create and edit in Excel.