Formulae changing when pasting numbers sheets to a new file

You really shouldn't have to rewrite all the formulas. Transferring it as a single sheet should work. The only formulas that might/will break when trying to make it one sheet would be INDIRECT formulas but even those will recover (I think) after pasting into the new document, splitting it into separate sheets, and getting the sheet names back to what they were.

1. In the old document, cut/paste (not copy/paste) tables to get them all onto one sheet. All cell references in formulas must be to cells on this one sheet. Any that are not will become messed up in step 3. Everything should still work as it did unless you have INDIRECT formulas that referred to one of these tables (but don't worry).
2. Copy the sheet (Right click on the sheet tab and Copy Sheet)
3. Paste it into the other document (Right click on a sheet tab and Paste Sheet)
4. Create new sheets so you can split it back up into the original individual sheets
5. Cut/paste (not copy/paste) tables to the other sheets
6. Rename the sheets as necessary. If you have INDIRECT formulas, this is likely an important step to getting it all to work again.

Yeah, Apple could have made this easier. What you are doing sounds like it should work but, unfortunately, it does not. The usual way to transfer from one to another is to put all related things into one sheet so the formulas refer only to cells on the same sheet. Copy/paste the sheet to the new document then split it up again.

It would be nice if we could select multiple sheets and copy/paste them together or if we could import an entire document into another one. Lacking that, the method I mentioned above is the only other way I see that it can be done. In general, a document could have sheet 1 referring to cells on sheet 2 and sheet 2 referring to cells on sheet 1 so there is no way of copy/pasting them one at a time without something breaking.

Strange. I cannot get it to do that. I am not on the latest version, though. Maybe they messed something up recently or it is related to whatever code is different for the M# processor. I am using version 13.1 on an Intel Mac. You can report this as a bug using the menu item Numbers->Provide Numbers Feedback. I would report it too except I can't duplicate the problem.

You might have better luck if you turned off the Numbers preference "Use header names as labels". I tried it on and off with no issues either way but that's the only thing I can think of that might be causing it (though it should not be). I dislike that feature anyway because it often makes formulas hard to understand and usually creates a weird mix of named references and normal col-row references in formulas.

Please see if turning off "use header names as labels" fixes the problem. Other people need to transfer sheets like you are trying to do and now our only method of doing it has gone wacko.

Odd. No columns changed, all you did was move the table. You are cut/pasting the entire table, right? The table goes away, the cell references all break, then you paste it onto a blank space on the sheet and all be good again.

Can you post a screenshot of a sample/piece of that table and the formula? I'd like to be able to duplicate the problem.