Pasted text doesn’t comma split into cells (columns or rows) in Numbers

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Level 1

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Pasted text doesn’t comma split into cells (columns or rows) in Numbers

Hey Community,

I’d like to ventilate a list of comma-separated email-addresses into cells, but NUMBERS (version 12.2.1 (7035.0.161)) keeps copying the entire list into one single cell (if one cell selected) / the same content into several cells (if several cells selected).

This is the format at start, when pasted into Cell_B2 : "username1@host1.com" <username1@host1.com>, "username2@host2.com" <username2@host2.com>, "username3@host3.com" <username3@host3.com>, etc…

Is there no way for NUMBERS to jump-paste into the next cell, each time it recognizes any comma ?

…in order to get following result :

Cell_B2 : "username1@host1.com" <username1@host1.com>

Cell_B3 : "username2@host2.com" <username2@host2.com>

Cell_B4 : "username3@host3.com" <username3@host3.com>

etc…

Seems so basic, …but hard to figure out.

Any solution would be much appreciated.

:)

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Mar 8, 2023 5:56 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Badunit

Level 7

30,384 points

Mar 8, 2023 7:28 PM in response to gestyle

Actually, a comma in a comma separated value (CSV) file means to separate into a new column. A carriage return separates it into a new row.

Open the list in TextEdit
Find/replace all commas with carriage returns (use Option Return to create the carriage return). You will probably need to replace comma space (not just the comma) with a carriage return
Copy the results
Click on a cell in Numbers. Do not click twice; do not get into text entry mode.
Paste
It may paste it into two columns. If so, a window will pop up to "adjust table settings". Click on it then click on the tab that says "delimited". Unhighlight all of the delimiters, then click "update table". It should move it all into one column

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Answer 2

Badunit

Level 7

30,384 points

Mar 9, 2023 7:13 AM in response to gestyle

Good question and it brings up other methods you could use.

To have it separate it by commas it needs to see it as CSV data. Two rows of data in your text file with the same number of commas in both rows will do it. In Textedit, copy/paste the data to make a second row of the same data. Copy both rows and paste into a Numbers table. It will create two rows of data in the table. Delete one of those rows.

Or if you save your original one-row text file with the extension of csv (eg, mytextfile.csv) you can drag-drop that file from Finder into Numbers and it will import it as a CSV file with it split into columns by commas and into rows by carriage returns.

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Answer 3

gestyle Author

Level 1

1 points

Mar 9, 2023 2:41 AM in response to Badunit

Hello Badunit,

This is an excellent step-by-step – thank you !

It works perfectly !

If I may add 2 questions :

1) Let’s say we take this comma-separated expression as is : 111, 112, 113, 114

What would be the trigger for NUMBERS to ventilate/split-paste the figures into separate cells in a row ?

Pasting in one cell, puts all figures into the same cell. If several cells are selected, the pasted content is copied as is into each selected cell. Isn’t there any working «split-paste process» ?

2) Regarding these explanations, I couldn’t find any such simple step-by-step in the Apple-Documentation, neither locally in NUMBERS, nor remotely in any support-articles. At least, through my search. I probably missed the right keywords. #source : Where do you have the information from ? Is it available somewhere on Apple’s side I didn’t look at ?

:)

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Pasted text doesn’t comma split into cells (columns or rows) in Numbers

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