diff --git a/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/static/js/codecell.js b/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/static/js/codecell.js
index e34bb69..8ca5eb6 100644
--- a/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/static/js/codecell.js
+++ b/IPython/frontend/html/notebook/static/js/codecell.js
@@ -66,6 +66,10 @@ var IPython = (function (IPython) {
// handlers and is used to provide custom key handling. Its return
// value is used to determine if CodeMirror should ignore the event:
// true = ignore, false = don't ignore.
+
+ if (this.read_only){
+ return false;
+ }
// note that we are comparing and setting the time to wait at each key press.
// a better wqy might be to generate a new function on each time change and