Pasting nonadjacent selected rows into another sheet also pastes empty rows?!?!

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Level 2

322 points

Pasting nonadjacent selected rows into another sheet also pastes empty rows?!?!

I have a .csv sheet opened in Numbers. I select nonadjacent rows. I then open a second sheet and paste. This results in a table with data from the selected rows, but also blank rows for all of the unselected rows between the selected rows. I then have to select the blank rows and delete them. What a pain.

Surely there is a way to select nonadjacent rows and then paste just those selected rows into a new table, without blank rows between them. But how? Any ideas? Thanks!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 26, 2021 4:10 PM

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Answer 1

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SGIII

Level 8

37,562 points

Nov 28, 2021 8:18 AM in response to Steve Porritt

I don't think there is a way to copy-paste without the blank rows.

But it's really easy to get rid of the blank rows, using Quick Filter (in dropdown by the column Letter)

Uncheck '(Blank)'. Then select the visible cells, command-c to copy, click once in a cell in a blank table, and Edit > Paste and Match Style.

SG

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Answer 2

Steve Porritt Author

Level 2

322 points

Nov 29, 2021 4:30 PM in response to Steve Porritt

Yep, that worked! Thanks!

Still, I would think this would be a common task and am surprised that copy/paste works this way in Numbers. In MS Word, you can select nonadjacent bits of text, copy, and then paste, and you get only the bits you selected, without a series of spaces for the bits of text you didn't select. In Numbers, however, it's as if I'm saying "I'm selecting these rows and want to copy and paste them into another location." And Number is saying, "Ok, here you go! All the rows you've selected, plus, as a special bonus, all of the rows you didn't select minus their data! Enjoy!" Shades of the Heart of Gold's drinks machine.

I can imagine someone somewhere sometime wanting to copy selected nonadjacent rows and paste them into a different location with the blank rows so that they can fill in the blanks with new data. But that should be under "Paste Special", not "Paste".

Sorry for the rant. But thank you very much for a solution!

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Pasting nonadjacent selected rows into another sheet also pastes empty rows?!?!

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