How to lock column width in Excel.

When you are designing a form that will be filled out by someone else, you will not like him to modify the column width, as well as row height as your form format will be devastated by doing so. Microsoft Excel has an excellent feature to lock column width and height to prevent them from changing. During the time of designing an excel form, you can adjust width and height by yourself and after finalizing the form it is better to lock column width excel.

Remember, Excel is extensive but as long as you work in excel on regular basis it will become easier for you. I request you practice more to make it easier for you. Every day our expert team is working to prepare a comprehensive tutorial to help individuals like you around the world. You can bookmark our website to learn Microsoft Excel on a daily basis.

All the cells in an excel sheet are locked by default. If you want to protect any worksheet or workbook you need to unlock them first. Without unlocking cells protect worksheet/workbook will not work. That is why at first you need to learn how to unlock cells.

Read More: How to protect certain cells in Excel.

How to unlock the cells of a worksheet?

To unlock cells, range of cells, or total worksheets follow the instructions.

• Select the cell, range of cells, or entire worksheet that you want to unlock. To select the entire worksheet click on the triangle at the top left corner of the worksheet.

• Right-click anywhere on the worksheet and select Format Cell from the right-click menu.
• Go to the Protection tab, and uncheck the checkbox Locked to unlock the cell.

Alternatively, You can do the same thing from the ribbon command.

• Select the cell, range of cells, or entire worksheet then go to the Home tab.
• Find the cells group and click on Format.
• Select the Lock cell from the Protection. See the screenshot below.

When you unlock your cells you are half away from the goal to lock the column width or height of cells. Again I want to remind you that by default all excel cells are locked. To protect cells or the entire worksheet you need to unlock your excel cells.

Before locking column width you need to adjust column width and cell height as per your form design.

How to Adjust column width and row height

How to adjust column width

• Select all the columns that you want to adjust the width to and right-click.
• Select Column Width from the right-click menu. Type the column width as per your requirement.

• Click OK to complete the task.

How to adjust row height

• Select all the rows that you want to adjust the height to and right-click.
• After that select Row Height from the right-click menu. Type the row height as per your requirement.

• Click OK to complete the task.

Now it is time to lock the column width and row height.

How to lock column width

• Select one or more columns that you want to lock the width.
• Go to the Review tab, and select the command button Protect Sheet under protect group.

• From the Protect Sheet window, select all checkboxes except Format columns and Format rows.
• Give a password to protect/unprotect sheets.
• Click  OK to complete the task.

How to lock the row height

• Select one or more rows that you want to lock the height.
• Go to the Review tab, and select the command button Protect Sheet under protect group.

• From the Protect Sheet window, select all checkboxes except Format columns and Format rows.
• Give a password to protect/unprotect sheets.
• Click  OK to complete the task.

This is how you can lock the column width and row height in Microsoft Excel.

How it works for you

By default all cells are locked, we unlocked all cells. Then we protect the entire worksheet or selected cells. We changed the protected properties. We gave permission to do all activities except format columns and rows. That means users are allowed to do anything with the cell but they will not be able to perform format columns and rows.

That is how it locks column width and row heights.

Precaution of giving passwords to protect sheet

Before you give the password to any worksheet to protect it please remember the followings.

• Password is case-sensitive.
• If you forget your password there is no other alternative way to unprotect your worksheet.

We recommend you write down your password in a notebook or elsewhere to store it. It is very normal for anyone to forget the password.

Benefits of locking column width and row height

In case you are designing a document that is filled by other people, it is sure that some of them will modify the width or height of cells. It will ruin your format and your document will lose uniformity. Whenever you take the printout each document will be different from another.

Some people are so talented that they may add new columns or rows while filling up your worksheet. To avoid this kind of hassle it is better to lock cell height and widths. If anyone asks you for the password, do not disclose it to anyone.

For those who are reading this content, I hope, this article is helpful to you. Please post a comment if you have more queries. I will come back to you if you have any difficulties understanding the context of how to lock column width excel. Thank you.