[Issue] Paste cell to more than one non-contiguous cell

[HillCalc]

I am using Open Office on Mac OS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) 27" desktop and use Open Office Calc extensively.

Calc has the normal spreadsheet functions for deleting, formatting etc. contents of cells; but omits the basic option of pasting to more than one non-contiguous cell. Why? Such a simple function which mimics the other editing functions already included. Everyone would benefit from adding a one click multi-cell paste function. Maintaining large spreadsheets containing common data and headings (esp year by year) would be sooo much easier.

Who gets to decide on such matters? Please can they fix this anomaly next version (or update)?

[robleyd]

It seems this enhancement has been requested on Bugzilla several times over a number of years - see https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=47754 and https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=7357 and https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88306

Who gets to decide on such matters?

The developers - but they don't visit here See Reporting bugs or suggestions. You may have to contact the development mailing list to request an account as online registration has been closed due to spam.

[Lupp]

...a one click multi-cell paste function.

What concept do you have of such a functionality?
Where should the contents to paste come from?
What about cell styles, attributes, Validation settings, ConditionalFormat settings?
What about inclusion/exclusion of hidden rows/columns or filtered rows?
What if ranges to paste to intersect with locked output ranges of array-formulas?
...

Such a simple function...

Really that simple?
How to talk to that tool to make everything unmistakable?

By the way:
I don't need the feature, and I don't know how Excel (or Google sheets or whatever) handles this.
You are using AOO where development, and in specific enhancements by new features, virtually stopped. No chance to get this implemented, imo. Last supporting comment in the bug threads robleyd pointed to was from 2014.
I didnt find a related enhancement request for LibreOffice (much more vital development) by a quick search.

[Villeroy]

Works fine when you copy a single cell and paste to a filtered range.

[HillCalc]

I note Villeroy's response, but why such a cumbersome filter procedure when most other edit functions available to a Calc cell can be applied to multiple selected (non-contiguous) cells in one step?

Fill/Background colour; Bold; Italic; Delete Contents etc can be applied to any selected cell in one step...but NOT Cut-and-Paste! If Excel and Pages can do it it can't be hard.

Calc allows this function for contiguous ranges - why not non-contiguous cells? Both have to be selected by user. What is the difference between copying/pasting a cell's contents to a contiguous range and a non contiguous range - if it can be done for contiguous cells it must be trivial to accommodate separated (selected) cells.

I think it is a glaring omission from Calc's feature set.

[John_Ha]

I think it is a glaring omission from Calc's feature set.

I can do lots of pastes of data to contiguous cells so I am not sure what you want to do.

Can you please upload a small file with what you want to copy and tell us where you want to copy it to so we can be sure we understand exactly what you are trying to do.

Press POSTREPLY and click the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.

Pasting from the clipboard to multiple, individually selected cells is possible in LibreOffice.

[Villeroy]

I can tell you that writing a macro for this task turns out to be extremely difficult if the macro should cover all possible corner cases (do the right thing with whatever pattern of cells has been copied and whatever target cell has been chosen). This is far from trivial and Excel did not support this operation before version 9 or 10. Pasting over a single range selection across filtered or hidden cells is one way to guarantee a regular pattern of tiles and makes this task a bit more trivial which is why this has been added to OpenOffice in 2007 (version 3.0).

Edit: Until today, thanks to MrProgrammer, I did not notice that I can paste a single cell into a multiple selection. Good to know.

Edit: MrProgrammer passes the credit over to John_Ha.

[eeigor]

The topic was split. However, the author of this topic should pay attention to the following material.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly what the author asked for.