Lock selected cells without protecting worksheet

Right click on the cells and go to the Protection tab and choose whether its locked or not there.

Protecting then enables the lock. But you could Protect the sheet and set a blank password.

OR

You could also detect the change in an event and stop the edit. Maybe expand on your question for this one.

Martin,
Let me make sure I understand your solution. This code would keep me from protecting a worksheet yet protect selected cells from changes?

Yes. In my example if the user tries to select A3 or A5, he'll hear a beep and the cursor will move one cell to the right.

thanks Martin - it looks like I can apply this to my model.

great work - I am grateful, as always

And as always you're welcome and I'm glad I was able to help.

Marty - MVP 2009 to 2013

So what I said initially didn't count?

'detect the change in an event and stop the edit' is exactly the answer is you got. Dont I deserve some points?

If fh_freese wants to get moderator support to change his points assignment I don't have a problem.

Dephault,
Please do not misunderstand. I am grateful for your response even though I was already aware of the option you proposed which really did not provide to me a solution that Martin did. You've been very helpful in the past and I look forward to working with you going forward. I look for a "shooting solution" and Martin provided that for me.
Thank you, once again.

Martin,
Would your solution be in the Activate worksheet section as a sub-procedure?

It should be in the Worksheet_Change event exactly like I posted. If you don't already have code in that event, just go to Visual Basic, Open the code page for the sheet and copy/paste my complete example.

Did that - does beep but changes are allowed?

Martin,
The reason for being selective is that if I protect the sheet then the user does not have access to Conditional Formatting which is the exercises I am working on now. I'd like to protect most of the worksheet, yet leave access to Conditional Formatting. Thought you might like to know for such a "strange" need.

Whoa! It's working now. I rebooted this workstation, launched Excel and now it is working.
It appears that the best thing ging forward is to reboot this networked workstation first to make sure everything is OK.
Thanks Martin

If you protect the sheet like this you shouldn't need any code.

Always looking after me! That's perfect....
Thanks for the follow-up.

You're welcome.