Lock a Range of Cells in Excel

August 25, 2003 - by Bill Jelen

Prashant asks today’s question:

Please tell me the way for locking only a particular range of cells along with the formula instead of locking the entire sheet.

First you have to unlock all the other cells. This is a non-intuitive first step, but it is necessary, because all of the cells start with their "Locked" property set to True.

1. Select the entire sheet by clicking on the grey square to the left of the gray letter A at the top of column A
2. From the menu, Format > Cells. Click the Protection tab. Uncheck the Locked checkbox. Click OK.

Then, you can protect a certain number of cells. For this example, let’s protect F4:G10.

3. Select cells F4:G10.
4. From the menu, Format > Cells. Click the Protection tab. Check the Locked checkbox. Click OK.
5. From the menu, Tools > Protection > Protect Sheet. Enter a password if so desired.

Now, only the cells in F4:G10 will be protected.