How To Create A Hands-Off Section of A Spreadsheet

HOW TO CREATE A HANDS-OFF SECTION OF A SPREADSHEET 

I often distribute complex spreadsheets so colleagues can enter their own information. But I don’t want them to access any of the other parts of the document. How can I create a hands-off section?

 One of the easiest ways is to use the Visual for Basic Applications (VBA) editor. Now don’t get nervous; it’s not really high tech and it’s easy to implement. Begin by right-clicking on the sheet tab of the worksheet to which you want to add protection; in the screenshot below, that’s Sheet1 . When the context menu opens, click on View Code .

That, in turn, will open the Properties-Sheet1 code window (see screenshot below). If the Properties window fails to open, press F4.

In the box next to ScrollArea, enter the range of the area you want available for data entry; in this case I made it $A$1:$C$7 . It must be a contiguous area. The rest of the worksheet is now cordoned off.

Finally, close the VBA editor and the worksheet is ready to go.