How to add comments/colours to cells in a protected sheet

[Nousj]

Hi
I'm the administrator of a large spreadsheet used to track absence in my
department. To avoid others messing with the formulae used to capture totals,
% etc., I've protected the worksheet and have only made some relevant cells
editable (i.e. I've locked the other cells).
However, I've now found out you cannot actually add a comment or edit the
colour of the cell background or text when you do this. This is essential to
my spreadsheet as the colours show the type of absence, while the comments
are used to indicate extra information (e.g. in case of training, where it
takes place, who is attending, etc.).
Is there any way that I can still keep my sheet protected, but can add
colours and comments to the cells?
I'd appreciate your comments/tips
Thanks

 

[Cumberland]

You will have to unprotect the sheet before doing this, unfortunately.

Do you change the colour of the cells depending on the value of the
entry? If so, you could use conditional formatting - that way, the
sheet can stay protected. IE: If you wanted the cell colour to be red
if a value was a certain value, conditional formatting can take care of
this.

 

[Nousj]

Thanks for that Cumberland
That's not quite what I mean, though. I know you can use conditional
formatting and if I only had 3 different colours that might work, but I have
several more, so I have to add them manually. Also, there is such a range of
letters a cell could contain, I'm not sure if the conditional formatting
would pick up on - or see distinction between - a combination of letters...

Never mind, though; I've now found the answer in one of the other threads
(unfortunately my initial search didn't bring this up or I wouldn't have
wasted your time). Apparently, when you protect the sheet (Tools - Protection
- Protect sheet) you can tick the box for 'edit objects' (which solved my
comments problem) and/or tick the box for 'format cells' (which solved my
background colour problem).

Again, thanks for your answer and your time, though. Hope this answer helps
others.

Anousjka