How To Lock Formula in Google Sheets – Guide
Google Sheets is a great alternative to Microsoft Excel. Although it doesn’t have all the features of Excel, it’s still very capable software, especially for free. Once you’ve created your ideal spreadsheet, you may hesitate to share it with others - after all, sticky fingers indicate faded cells, which can destroy your carefully prepared calculations. The good news is that you can lock ranges of cells or an entire sheet in Google Sheets to prevent them from being changed. ..
How to Knife
Lock an entire sheet in Google Sheets
If you want to keep all the data in a spreadsheet from being edited by others, you can lock it.
You can now lock in the sheet by clicking the Lock icon. ..
To add criteria to lock your sheet, click the Add a sheet or range option.
To start locking the entire sheet, select the Sheet tab and click on the lock button.
Press the Set Permissions button to allow the app to access your contacts and calendar. ..
If you want to prevent someone else from editing the sheet or Custom, choose Only You.
If you choose Custom, you can select the people you want to be able to add as editors or contributors.
To continue, please click the Done button. If you do not want to continue, please Cancel. ..
Starting today, only you or authorized users will be able to edit your sheet. ..
Block specific cells in Google Sheets
There are times when you want to allow people to edit your spreadsheet, but still want to protect specific cells. You might want to lock cells with complicated formulas, for example. ..
To protect cells, highlight the cells you want to lock and then press the “lock” button.
To protect a range of cells, right-click any of the selected cells and click Protect Range. ..
In the Protected Pages and Ranges panel, you can name your cell range. This will help you control whether you want to protect multiple ranges, but you can leave the name blank if you prefer.
Apply restrictions to selected cells in the document using the Press Set Permissions button.
If you want to protect specific cell ranges on a spreadsheet, you can do so in the next stage. This will allow only authorized users to view or edit the cells in those ranges. ..
Lock an entire sheet except for specific cells
To protect a large number of cells in a worksheet, you can lock the sheet except for a range of cells. ..
Protected sheets and ranges are a powerful way to keep data safe and secure. By protecting your sheet and range data, you can ensure that it is inaccessible to unauthorized individuals or third-party software.
Select the cells in the range you want to add.
On the Sheet tab, in the Worksheet group, click the Sheets button. In the Sheets dialog box, on the Name tab, type a name for your worksheet. On the Columns tab, in the Columns group, click the Add button. In the Add Column dialog box, type a name for your column and select a data type. Click OK to close the Add Column dialog box. On the Rows tab, in the Rows group, click the Add button. The Add Row dialog box appears. In this dialog box, you can specify how many rows your column will contain and what data format you want to use for that row’s values. To add a new row to your worksheet: 1) In the Row field at the top of this dialog box, type a number that represents how many rows you want to add to your worksheet; 2) In either of its two other fields (Columns and Data Format), select a data format from one of three options: Text (the default), Date/Time or Number/Percentage; and 3) Click OK to add this row to your worksheet. ..
Activate the Except certain cells checkbox to prevent the cell from being selected.
If you highlight a cell in a spreadsheet, it may bring up the cell you currently highlighted. ..
If this is not one of the cells you want to leave unlocked, please select the data range you want to use.
If you want to add another range to the protected cells, press the Add another range button and select additional cells.
When you are finished selecting your ranges, click OK to confirm and Set permissions button.
In the next phase, you will be able to set user permissions. Your sheet will then be protected, with the exception of the cells you selected. ..
Enable soft warnings for cell editing
If you don’t want to block cells, you can still give them a layer of protection by applying gentle warnings. Google Sheets will alert you if you plan to edit your cells, but won’t restrict you if you decide to continue.
After choosing Range or Sheet, press Set Permissions.
In the range edit permissions window, choose to show a warning when editing this range.
The press is done. Save the data and close the connection.
This warning appears when you try to edit a protected cell in your account. If you choose to not edit it, the alert will disappear.
You can choose to turn off warnings for the next five minutes by checking the Don’t show this again for 5 minutes checkbox. ..
Final note
Formula locks are a great way to keep your Google Sheets data safe and secure. By using a Formula lock, you can ensure that only you have access to the data. This will help keep your data private and secure.
