Formatting Cells

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Dmac - 19 Oct 2007 21:27 GMT

I am a newbie to Excel. I have a workbook that I would like to format some
of the cells. First of all I did not create the workbook, but I can't see
any protection set for the workbook.

There is a range of cells on one of the sheets that when I right-click in
the cells and select format (or on the toolbar), nothing happens, however,
if I click outside the range of cells I can right-click and select format
and the format options window opens and I can format all elements of the
cell.

Is there something that could be checked that is preventing me from being
able to format these cells? Maybe something written in VBA. I opened up
the VBA editor and I didn't see any code written.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

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Dmac - 19 Oct 2007 21:53 GMT

I forgot to mention and I should have done so, when I select format from the
toolbar, "Cells" is available but nothing happens when "Cells" is selected.
The same thing when you right-click in a cell and select "Format Cells."

>I am a newbie to Excel. I have a workbook that I would like to format some
>of the cells. First of all I did not create the workbook, but I can't see
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Thanks in advance.

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Dave Peterson - 19 Oct 2007 22:14 GMT

The only time I've seen this is when the original workbook was created in a
different program--crystal reports or Lotus 123.

I included a few "sacrificial" cells in my selection, made my changes to all of
them.

Then went back and fixed the sacrificial cells to the way they were supposed to
be. (I included a cell way out of the way of where the data really is.)

> I am a newbie to Excel. I have a workbook that I would like to format some
> of the cells. First of all I did not create the workbook, but I can't see
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Thanks in advance.

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Dave Peterson

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Dmac - 20 Oct 2007 00:33 GMT

Thanks Dave.

Let me see if I understand you correctly! This workbook may have been
created by using another program and saved or exported as an excel file.
Some of the cells may have been protected in the other program and Excel is
not recognizing this and therefore not allowing any formating to these
cells???

The strange part is that many of the cells can be formatted perfectly.
There are about 10 sheets in this workbook. Each sheet has a minimum of
7-10 columns and a at least 50 rows. The top three rows on all the pages
(Used primarily as the Header porton of each sheet) can be formatted. Cell
shading, borders, alignment, etc. No restrictions. But all cells which
currently have formatting cannot be formated/altered. The option if
available, but nothing happens when it is selected.

Thanks!

> The only time I've seen this is when the original workbook was created in
> a
[quoted text clipped - 28 lines]
>>
>> Thanks in advance.

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Dave Peterson - 20 Oct 2007 00:53 GMT

Maybe. That was the problem with the ranges that had this problem.

There were .wk* files that were opened in excel and saved as .xls. There were
files that were created directly from Crystal Reports.

My solution for the old *.wk* files was to copy|paste special|formulas into a
new worksheet in a new workbook. And then to apply the formatting I wanted.

My solution for the CR files was to use the sacrificial cells and format more
than I wanted. (The files from CR were regenerated every night. I didn't think
it was worth the time to recreate the worksheets each morning.)

> Thanks Dave.
>
[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]
> >
> > Dave Peterson

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