You are recommended to practice them both along with the given practice workbook and find the method best suits your cases. The second method is to use the F4 hotkey as the shortcut to lock up a cell. The first method is about assigning the Dollar Sign ($) manually before the column and the row number. In this blog post, two methods to lock a cell in an Excel formula have been discussed with examples. Use the F4 hotkey to lock a cell instantly.Assign Dollar Sign ($) before the row and the column number to lock a cell.Read More: Difference Between Absolute and Relative Reference in Excel Things to Remember Press the F4 key again to lock the column number from the row number.Ĭ.Now, select Go To Special from the dropdown menu, as shown below. Toggle from Absolute to Relative Cell Reference Select all the functions and formula cells in the sheet by pressing the Find & Select button on the Home tab. Select the Cell Reference in the Formula Bar.ī.Toggle from Relative to Absolute Cell Referenceįor example, you are working currently with the Relative Cell Reference and want to switch to the Absolute Cell Reference. For that, we need to change the default setting of all the. You can easily toggle in between Relative, Absolute, and Mixed Cell References by pressing the F4 hotkey. Locking formula cells means that we will be locking some chosen cells. Step 3: Select the cells that you plan to lock and right-click them to choose Format Cells and tick the Locked option. Step 2: Switch to the Protection interface, untick the Locked option and click OK. Then right-click the worksheet and choose Format Cells in the context menu. Read More: F4 Not Working in Absolute Cell Reference in Excel (3 Solutions) Additional Tips Step 1: Press Ctrl+A to select all the cells in the Excel worksheet.