Can't format cells

[sawedoff]

I have inherited a rather complex workbook, with numerous worksheets, and one of them is puzzling me. The person who created this used many unorthodox methods to get his desired result, because at the time, he was learning Excel with no teacher around. Now he is no longer around.

The sheet cosists of many small tables of data, all grey in color, without gridlines. These are separated by drawing objects (white rectangles) that have been shaped to equal the size of the divider rows or columns.

The problems I am having are:
1. None of the grey cells can be reformatted to any other color. They just stay grey. No error msg, just won't change.
2. The gridlines can't be brought back, the Tools-Options-View settings are still normal.
2. At the far right side is what looks like a mini legal pad sheet, white, with rows and columns marked in grey, just like the spreadsheet should be, except it appears to be in Page layout view (not the whole worksheet, just this 3 column, 53 row block), complete with a page number in the middle. I can grab the edge of the page layout and change the size, but can't select it, move it, delete it, or copy it.

Anyone have any ideas?

I know this is long and drawn out, but I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks.

Sawedoff

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Is the sheet protected?

Skip,

_{[red]Be advised:[/red] When transmitting sheet music...
If it ain't baroque, don't fax it!}

 

[sawedoff]

No, the sheet isn't protected.

Sawedoff

 

[SkipVought]

can you send to me?

skipandmary1017 at mindspring.com

Skip,

_{[red]Be advised:[/red] When transmitting sheet music...
If it ain't baroque, don't fax it!}

 

[sawedoff]

Thanks for you willingness to help, but I solved the problem over the weekend. The spreadsheet designer had changed just the one worksheet to page layout view, and I (duh) didn't catch on. I felt like a dummy when I figured it out, because I had just said it LOOKED like that, but it didn't occur to me that it really was. The print area was set to I5:L53, and it really mde the worksheet look odd. And the fact that he used drawing rectangled to separate the other tables within the sheet compounded things. Thanks anyway.


Sawedoff