Protecting cells and total workbook

[mrwul62]

I don't know if at all the following would be possible and if so what the best solution might be.

For the weekly competition in our bridgeclub an Excel workbook/sheet is being used.

The workbook is protected (not with a password, i.e. it is easy to unprotect it)
Someone adds the results to the sheet, protects it, and distributes the sheet to members.
There are 2 persons that are doing this.
Regretfully neither one has any Excel experience whatsoever and often formulas are deleted or written over.

In such cases, there are simply no results, until someone has found some old, already used, Excel workbook, with the formulas still in place. It is a clumsy way of working.

It is a big workbook, with quite a number sheets and complicated formulas.
The person who created this workbook regretfully passed away.

I know there is a way to protect the cells containing the formulas and leave open only those that should be filled.
That is the first protection.

The results are distributed, but before doing so, the whole workbook should be protected.
So the workbook has '2 layers' of protection.

Q: Is it possible to remove -only- the workbook protection, without removing the cell protection?
Maybe cell protection should be protected with a password?

Thanks!

 

[mrwul62]

Forget it, it is what I already assumed: it is not possible within Excel, at least not in a simple, one click way.
1. workbook with sheets with locked cells, password protected, i.e. only unlocked cells can be edited
2. when done, protect entire workbook so that it can only be viewed, i.e. unlocked cells are also protected.

Anyway, forget it, it is not possible.
Maybe one time in future.

(Note: PDF print is not an option, also tried Save as.., with option 'Read Only' - it does not work either : unlocked cells can be edited)

 

[BadgerRoad]

You can do that in the Worksheet Selection process. The top two boxes allow you to Select Locked Cells and Select Unlocked Cells. If you uncheck the Select Unlocked Cells it prevents the user from selecting those cells. So when you distribute the workbook you would need to first unlock the sheet, then relock with the Select Unlocked Cells unchecked. You could do this with a couple of macros to make it easier.

 

[BadgerRoad]

I said "Worksheet Selection". I meant Worksheet Protection".