Another Apple Lost Function

I'm not entirely sure what you're seeing/missing... I might help if you showed your data (obfuscated if you prefer), but you have several options when pasting data into Numbers.

> that they used to be a "CONVERT" function in pages, after copy/paste, that would convert the entire file into columnar data according to the spreadsheet columns so the data could be edited.

First off, if your data is comma-delimited (you don't say what format the source data is in), then Numbers will automatically break it into columns based on the commas.

Additionally, since this is an imperfect science, immediately after the paste it shows a little pop-up:

Clicking on this will display the Import Settings dialog where you can adjust the way Numbers imports the data:

Alternatively, if you're copy/pasting the data, there are a couple of other controls, too.

First, there is a difference between pasting into a table and into an active cell.

If the cell is active (e.g. has an active insertion point cursor where you can type a value/formula) then the text will be pasted into that single cell. If the cell is highlighted then that will be used as the upper-left cell for the imported data.

There are also two options in the Insert menu, namely Copied Rows and Copied Columns which can affect the order in which the pasted data is added. This may or may not make a difference based on your data structure.

> just thought of another lost function; using punctuation to acquiter unique names for editing purposed of large document so guess it is no good here as well.

I literally have no idea what you're referring to here. Can you elaborate?