[LO Calc] Sorting protected cells with autofilter?

I have a simple sheet, with cells (and sheet) protected, and with autofilter on the first row.
While trying to sort the results in ascending/descending order, I receive the warning “Protected cells cannot be modified” .

What I understand from that is Calc considers changing row order a conflict with cells protection. However, that operation does not change the contents of the cells…

So, my question might actually be: is it possible to reorder protected rows ?
(I know I can “unprotect - reorder - protect again”, but I am looking for a more simple and elegant solution, that doesn’t weight when doing this hundreds of times.)

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While trying to sort the results in ascending/descending order, I receive the warning “Protected cells cannot be modified” … However, that operation does not change the contents of the cells…

Where did you take that conclusion from? If cell A1 has a value B and cell A2 has a value A and you alpha-sort, then A1 has value A and cell A2 has value B after the sort. From my perspective this is a change.


> is it possible to reorder protected rows ?

Sort doesn’t reorder rows but reorders content to new rows according your sort criteria.

And in that sense you put the title of your question wrong. You are asking about Sorting protected cells and not about Autofilter protected cells (which isn’t a problem at all)

Ah, you’re right! I was considering a column as index for my rows… Now it makes sense. Thank you!

About the title of the question, it is not just a matter of sorting, but sorting while using autofilter.

it is not just a matter of sorting, but sorting while using autofilte

No - it is only a matter of sorting. Autofilter on protected cells works as usual and it does not matter if you use sort while being in autofilter or if you just sort (the sort causes the protected cells not being reordered since this action would change cell content, while filtering only hides rows [i.e. sets row width to zero], but doesn’t change content)

Sorry, maybe I haven’t expressed myself well: the autofilter tool, when applied to a cell, adds a dropdown menu, where you can actually filter, but also sort rows. I didn’t realize those sorting options do the same operations as the sorting tools (in the toolbars). I thought the autofilter menu ones were different tools, somewhat visual only…

I know this comment might be controversial, on the other hand it might help some people and possibly help improve LibreOffice, so here goes: MS Excel allows (for many years) sorting of protected cells.
Through “Allow Users to Edit Ranges” dialog. When you are locking the sheet (Protect Sheet), there are adittional options, that LO Calc lacks: “Sort” “Use Autofilter” (and others, not important for this particular issue).
This article covers it in detail: How to Sort Locked Cells in Protected Worksheets | SoftArtisans
There are possible solutions to this issue and it would be nice if LO Calc had similar solution implemented.

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It is not possible to sort / reorder protected rows, because by doing that the cells would change their contents (example: the value at cell A1 - that is, column A, row 1 - would be moved to another row).

(Also, the sorting options in the autofilter menu do the same that the sorting tools in the toolbars.)