Cannot select cells with the mouse in Excel

Question

I keep seeing suggestions about what is preventing the use user selecting cells with mouse or touchpad. It has other ramifications: if you freeze worksheets Excel "forgets" where you froze them, so they become frozen in random places.

Yet I still read these "suggestions". Why not admit that the bug exists? Either tell us when it will be fixed, or suggest an alternative product. Does Access have this bug, I wonder?

Ron McLaren

Answer 1

Hi Ron and Heather McLaren,

Thanks for visiting Microsoft Community.

The feature you're referring to, "freezing worksheets," is indeed unrelated to selecting cells but instead keeps certain rows and columns visible while scrolling through the rest of the worksheet. This feature can be found under the "View" tab, within the "Window" section. Here's an illustration of the process:

Perhaps what you're looking for is the "Protect Sheet" feature? You can lock specific cells and then protect the worksheet so that only those unlocked cells can be selected, leaving the locked cells unselectable. Here’s how to do it:

1. Lock Cells:
   • Select the range of cells you want to lock.
   • Right-click and choose "Format Cells."
   • Go to the "Protection" tab.
   • Check the "Locked" box.
     
2. Protect the Worksheet:
   • Go to the "Review" tab.
   • Click on "Protect Sheet."
   • Ensure that "Select unlocked cells" is checked.
   • Set any necessary password if you wish to restrict changes further.

This setup will allow users to select only the cells that are not locked when the sheet is protected.

Please share more of your thoughts or questions, and I'd be happy to assist further.

Best Regards,

Jonathan Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Thank you for your reply, Jonathan.

It might have been better if I had put some background in my question.

The frequent sudden inability of the user to select cells with the mouse is well-known and very regrettable. I had a reply from Microsoft (not the Community), saying that there was, indeed, a bug in Excel causing that phenomenon. I do wish MS would say more, because it is still a nuisance, in spite of taking all updates. (I grew up in the era of Known Error Logs.)

The reason I wrote this time seemed to me related. Each of the 20 worksheets in most of my workbooks has a cell named "Freezepoint".

A macro goes through the sheets and freezes each cell at that point. Another macro does the unfreeze. Yet, after a while one will find the sheets frozen in other apparently random places. I was guessing that had something to do with losing the identity of the freezepoints, even though the address each cell named "Freezepoint" was unchanged in Name Manager.

You have told me that I misunderstand the problem, so thank you.

As for protecting and unprotecting which you mention, I can also say that a while after selecting the ranges of worksheet cells that are to be locked (or not) and then running my Protect all sheets macro, I find that the range of protected cells has changed. It looked like another case of mistaken identity.

But it is the failure to select cells with the touchpad that is the really irritating problem.

Apparently my message is another case of known offenders tend to be suspected for complicity in other crimes.

Regards, Ron McLaren

Answer 3

Hi Ron and Heather McLaren,

 I understand that the error you've encountered is related to macros in Excel. Can the issue be reproduced manually within Excel, or does it only occur with specific Excel files that contain macros? 

Since there is limited knowledge within the community regarding this issue, I suggest posting both the problem and your code on Stack Overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/vba for better assistance. There, more experienced professionals can offer you advice.

Disclaimer: Microsoft makes no implied or other warranties, and is not responsible for information obtained from linked third-party websites or for any technical support related to technology provided by such sites.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best Regards,

Jonathan Z - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 4

Thank you again, Jonathan.

All three situations have only manifested themselves in the last year, whereas the macros are all several years old.

The sudden inability to select cells with the mouse does not involve any macros.

The freezing of workbooks was done by a macro that had been in use for 6 years. It froze sheets correctly at cells to which I had previously assigned names. A similar remark may be made about the protect and unprotect macros. However, the “forgetting” of the identity of the cell at which a sheet had been frozen, and the “forgetting” of which cells had previously (i.e. before running the protect macro) been set as locked, were problems that cropped up in later use of the workbook. It would seems that any macro-related cause would appeared to have a delayed effect, which seems infeasible, to put it mildly.

For the reasons above I have stopped freezing worksheets (with or without a macro). But I don’t want to put up with the locking of cells, so that problem has the be corrected by hand every time it emerges (i.e. when Excel prevents me from putting data in a cell which was not locked, but now is).

I’m resigned to putting up with the current situation.

Nevertheless, thanks for  your contributions, which have cost you some time.

Ron

Answer 5

hi, since the last update in august my mouse has been acting very erraticly. Just in basic excel-sheet (no macros, no frozen columns or cells) it is difficult to select a cell with a mouse, since it most of the time activates the content of the cell instead for choosing the cell or its formats to be copied somewhere. Selecting cell areas is almost impossible and sometimes 5-7 times of trying is needed. Also the sigma-sum tab is not useful anymore. Copy-paste with the mouse does not work all the time. I use excel in my work most of my working hours and since the latest office update the excel has been very painful. I am willing to demonstrate the problem to you in teams-meeting if you are interested. I hope you can fix this bug asap.

best regards

Susanna Rantala

Executive Consultant

Rovaniemi Finland