hi all,
is there a way to lock an individual cell in libreoffice? I can lock/protect a whole document or sheet, but can for the life of work out how to lock an individual sheet.
Thanks in advance!

Hi -

Lock file: Yes.

Lock individual cell or individual sheet: apparently not.

Here's one rationale (from a "coordinate authors" perspective):

I have lock cell feature - after right clicking on the cell, selecting "Format cells" and switching to last tab "Cell Protection" and selecting checkbox "Protected". You must also enable "Protect Sheet" from "Tools" menu.

If I select protect sheet I can't write to any cell if it's protected or not. Any cell just gives a libre 3.3 protoeced cells cannot be modified.
paulsm4 libreoffices rationale seems wrong, nor does it seem work that way in the software. All I want to do is lock cells ( like I've always done in other software ) so users can't over write certain cells, eg column headers where users fill in data etc.

For me it works as expected, when sheet is protected then locked cells are unmodifiable and non locked cells I can modify. I am using libreoffice-3.3.2.2, from Ubuntu repository. First I must deselect "Protect" option from cells which should not be protected as initially all cells are protected.

The trick is this: The cells are all protected by default (in my version, anyway). So, when you select cells to protect you should realize that all the other cells are still protected as well. When activating protection in Tools/Protect Document/Sheets, for the selected cells, it in fact activates protection for ALL the cells (whether selected or not). The result is that you cannot change a thing.

So, first select the entire sheet and unclick Protected in Format/Cells/Cell Protection and click OK

Now everything is unprotected and you can start protecting cells according to the standard instructions.

Presumably there is a way to change the default.