Arrow key weirdness

[Earl Kiosterud]

Hi folks,

Excel 2003. I have columns B-E unlocked from row 6 to the bottom of the worksheet. When I
protect the worksheet with only select unlocked cells allowed (but not locked cells), I can
select any unlocked cell with the mouse, but the tab and arrow keys behave very strangely.
Sometimes it causes the cell pointer to jump up to row 6, and then the cell pointer will
only move left and right through columns B-E in row 6 only, but never down. Often pressing
one of them locks up Excel. If when protecting the sheet I also allow selecting locked
cells, none of this strangeness happens. I've tried starting over building a new workbook,
and this starts to happen at various times before I've put much in the sheet, and once it
starts, it's toast. I can't tie it to anything I've done as I build the sheet.

I've restarted Excel, rebooted, used /unregserver and /regserver, stood up and turned around
three times -- all the stuff I'm supposed to do. It's a simple sheet, and it's a rush job.
Makes me wish I'd taken up archery instead.

Any ideas? Thanks.
--
Regards from Virginia Beach,

Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jim Cone]

Earl,
Just checked Excel 2003 and Excel 2002 (windows XP)
and they both exhibit the behavior you describe.
And this was on brand new completely blank sheets.
I tried changing the move after enter direction and that did not help.

I have not had need recently to lock/unlock cells so I don't
know whether this behavior is new or not.
--
Jim Cone
San Francisco, USA
http://www.realezsites.com/bus/primitivesoftware
(Excel Add-ins / Excel Programming)




"Earl Kiosterud"
wrote in message
Hi folks,
Excel 2003. I have columns B-E unlocked from row 6 to the bottom of the worksheet. When I
protect the worksheet with only select unlocked cells allowed (but not locked cells), I can
select any unlocked cell with the mouse, but the tab and arrow keys behave very strangely.
Sometimes it causes the cell pointer to jump up to row 6, and then the cell pointer will
only move left and right through columns B-E in row 6 only, but never down. Often pressing
one of them locks up Excel. If when protecting the sheet I also allow selecting locked
cells, none of this strangeness happens. I've tried starting over building a new workbook,
and this starts to happen at various times before I've put much in the sheet, and once it
starts, it's toast. I can't tie it to anything I've done as I build the sheet.

I've restarted Excel, rebooted, used /unregserver and /regserver, stood up and turned around
three times -- all the stuff I'm supposed to do. It's a simple sheet, and it's a rush job.
Makes me wish I'd taken up archery instead.

Any ideas? Thanks.
--
Regards from Virginia Beach,

Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jim Cone]

Earl,
A quick experiment...
I omitted the last row (65536) when unlocking the cells and
the tab/arrow/enter keys performed normally.
See if that works for you.
Jim Cone

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Jim,

I'd tried locking cells only to row 100 and it still failed. I just tried it again. It's a
capricious thing. It starts failing at odd times, but soon after starting a worksheet (in a
new workbook).

Seems like I've done this a million times before -- disallowing selecting locked cells. I
don't know what's up with this particular situation. Thanks for looking at it.