Locking and Unlocking Cells in an Excel Worksheet

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When sharing workbooks with others, you may in cerain instances need to protect particular areas of your worksheet from edits. For example, you may want to lock any cells containing formulas to prevent accidental changes. Once worksheet protection is in place, the locked data in a cell or cell range cannot be changed or deleted.

In order to protect a cell or cell range from data changes, you will first need to ensure that any cells in which you want to allow changes are in an unlocked state. By default, all cells are locked and once you protect a worksheet, locked cells are no longer editable. Once the cells that you want users to be able to access are unlocked, then you can apply protection to the desired area, either the active worksheet or the entire workbook

To Unlock Cells

Click the Home tab on the Ribbon.
Select the cell or cell range you wish to unlock.
Click the Format button on the Cells group.
Click the Lock Cell command on the menu. This is a toggle command that locks or unlocks a selected cell range.

Tip: You can also lock and unlock cells from the Protection tab of the Format Cells dialog box.