can you protect certain cells in excel
Protecting specific cells in an Excel sheet is easy. Protecting cells in a Word table isn't as easy, but it can be done: you insert a Text Form Field control into each cell where you want users to input or modify values. Then, you protect the document. Only those cells with the controls will allow changes.
You can protect cells (or whole rows or columns) by highlighting the cells (i.e. data input cells) you DON'T want to protect then click on Format->Cells->Protection tab. Uncheck the Locked box. Now protect your worksheet and/or workbooks with a password.