Numbers Import settings

Hi J,

Yes, that feature applies only to imported tables, not pasted tables. (Doh! I should have paid more attention to your original post!)

JakLes wrote:

I'm copying some text and pasting it to Numbers.

My first thought was pasting a table containing text. Or am I wrong?

What is your overall aim? How do you want to adjust text?

A screen shot will help us to see what you see. Delete or hide sensitive data before taking a screen shot.

Regards,

Ian.

Hi J,

I am flummoxed. I tried changing commas into tab characters, then copying and pasting into a Numbers table. I see the same result. Everything in the same column.

The only way I can see (and this is a pain in the ****) is to copy the text, open TextEdit and paste.

In TextEdit, Menu > Format > Make Plain Text and Save.

Open the TextEdit document in Numbers to see the pop-up.

Tabs used to work 🤔.

It seems that Numbers has changed. I shall pass this "upstairs" and call on someone who is an expert at text to table.

Regards,

Ian.

I think part of the problem here is that csv format usually has the same number of items on each line. Here you have three in the first line and two in the second.

If I add a third item to the second line so the first two lines have the same number of items then I can paste into Numbers as expected.

SG

JakLes wrote:

Hey, thanks for the idea.

Hi, it's not really an "idea." It's how csv generally works with most apps. For the data to import in a uniform way you will need the same number of items on each line, especially the first two lines.

SG

The only time it works consistently is if there are the same number of commas in each row (i.e., it will expand into the same number of columns in each row). Otherwise it is hit or miss. But it seems to always work if the text is in a TextEdit document and you open the TextEdit document using Numbers. So it is inconsistent in how it is treating the same text. It also used to work for text separated by tabs and I have a script that takes CSV text and turns it into tab separated text for just that reason, but that no longer works either (probably coinciding with the "table import" idea). Apparently someone in the iWork development team messed around with this part of the code and screwed it up. I'm kinda tired of documenting bugs that never get fixed. Write up a bug report using the menu item Numbers->Provide Numbers Feedback.

Hi J,

Do you mean this pop-up?

Click on the table to select it, then in the Format panel > Table tab, drag up to see this at the bottom:

Regards,

Ian.

+1. This is how it must be done to spread evenly across columns upon paste (with Numbers v13.1).

I also have this problem, works then doesn't. I'm copying and pasting from a pdf.

This was not obvious solution! I’ve been struggling for months with this issue.

You may want to consider to create yourself a simple iOS Shortcut like the one I’m using now to get any text to be imported via options dialogue.

Let’s say we want the content of the cell to be displayed as table, so this workaround helps to make that happen within Numbers app only.

1. Double Tap the cell, select and copy the text.
2. Create an empty table with MORE THAN ONE column.
3. Select in column A as much rows as needed for each line of the text that was copied.
4. Paste text into those cells and copy the WHOLE table.
5. Run the Shortcut
6. Paste the clipboard contents and choose an option for import.

Good luck, hope this will help

Paul