sorting protected sheet not working

[Keith G Hicks]

I'm getting the impression from my tests and reading various forums that
this is not possible even though the protection dialog box has an option to
allow sorting.

I'm creating a spreadsheet on the fly from MS Access vba based on some SQL
data. This is distributed to another company so they can fill in some of the
missing data. There are 10 columns. The first 8 are for reference only and
are not to be edited. The last 2 columns are the ones they can fill in if
needed. So I'm protecting the sheet and unlocking the last 2 columns. All
that works peachy but even when I say to allow sorting, sorting is not
possible. Seems a bit dumb. Why have a checkbox to alllow sorting if it's
not possible? Is there a way to allow this? I'd like the end user to be able
to sort the sheet by any of the first 8 columns so they can locate rows more
easily. They're not going to be happy if they have to hit CTRL+F all the
time to find an entry.

I get that it's risky to allow sorting because they could potentially sort
on just a range of cells and foul up the data entirely. But I'm figuring
there has to be a way around that. But you'd think that MS could make this
thing smart enough to prevent that if the worksheet is protected.

Thanks,

Keith

 

[Dave Peterson]

Are all the cells in the range to sort unlocked?

Do you have any cells that are locked that are touching this range?

 

[Keith G Hicks]

No, because then the user would be able to edit them. I want them to be
sortable but not editable, but I guess that's impossible. Once again,
another not very well thought out MS thing.

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you don't like how MS implemented this, you could always give the users a
dedicated macro that would unprotect the sheet, do the sort, and reprotect the
sheet.

 

[Keith G Hicks]

Yep. That's something I thought about yesterday and might do if the client
feels it's necessary.
Thanks for your input.

 

[lldiel]

When you protect the sheet...in the dialog box where you enter your password
to proctect it the first time...there is also an area to select which
funtions you will allow users of the protected sheet to do...one of functions
is sort. There are many options available to allow or not allow.

 

[Keith G Hicks]

Yes. Thank you. That's the point. It doesn't work. Did you read my OP?