Numbers not accurately pasting tab delimited data

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Level 1

32 points

Numbers not accurately pasting tab delimited data

This is both an 08 and 09 version problem.

I have an extreme need to be able to copy/paste columnar data in tab delimited form from Pages to Numbers. I have done this in the past without problems using both versions but for some odd reason I began having multiple problems yesterday.

I have tried everything I know, including copy/paste from 08 (original data in this version) to 09, saving and closing the file, reopening the file and performing the copy/paste of the 627 lines to Numbers 08/09 but keep getting almost identical results. It is as if the file is being copied partly as Tab Delimited and part as Comma Delimited causing some elements to show up on different lines including partials lines being posted in cells of the previous line.

I have also tried to copy just one page of the data, there are page breaks over the 21 pages to keep the data in a mirroring form (this is hand entered from old document images). This seems to work properly EXCEPT that it only pastes 13 lines of the 30 lines copied. Then if I copy from line 14 to 30 and paste it on pastes through line 22. And, this is consistent on both versions of Numbeers. I am using Apple Chancery font which should not have any effect.

Using "Show Invisibles", there seems to be nothing whatsoever extraneous to cause any of this.

Screne Shot 01 is of the data after it was copied (entire file selected) and pasted from pages 08 to pages 09 to eliminate the header from consideration.

Screne Shot 02 is the data pasted (entire file selected) to Numbers 08 (identical results using Numbers 09)

As can bee seen, there seems to be nothing in the original file to cause this.

Any Ideas?

Sparkgapper

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), Intel Duo 20" flatpanel

Posted on Aug 16, 2012 8:08 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Jerrold Green1

Level 7

30,210 points

Aug 16, 2012 8:42 AM in response to Sparkgapper

Sparky,

What happens if you convert the text to a table in Pages? Select the text, then Format > Table > Comvert Text to Table. Does it work better in Pages than when pasting into Numbers?

Jerry

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Answer 2

Sparkgapper Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 16, 2012 10:49 AM in response to Jerrold Green1

That worked perfectly as a workaround though the conversion removed all the columnar formatting to equal sized columns. I still had to do quite a bit of resizing after porting into Numbers anyway so not problems there. This still should be looked into by Apple to see why it did not work as it should, particularly as it had been working properly up until yesterday.

Sparkgapper

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Answer 3

Aug 16, 2012 11:29 AM in response to Sparkgapper

It's always easy to set column widths in a table with the Inspector. Regarding the original problem, my guess is that there are unseen non-printing characters in your data. I say this, and I'm just guessing, because of the different date formats and other inconsistencies in your document that tell me that you copied and pasted from various sources, as opposed to typing the content locally.

Jerry

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Answer 4

Sparkgapper Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 16, 2012 12:09 PM in response to Jerrold Green1

Sorry to inform you but ALL this data was HAND ENTERED (as I specified in the beginning) directly into Pages and I have been typing for 50+ years. If there is any "UnPrintable Characters" on that spreadsheet document then it was put there by the COPY/PASTE (OA C/OA V) operation. Those different date formats were as they are recorded so they would be a MIRROR IMAGE (also stated before) of the photo image as befits a TRUE transcription of a document. ALL of this is GENEALOGICAL work and REQUIRES TRUE TRANSCRIPTION and should remain in TEXT format whether or not it is on the spreadsheet or WP document.

It is considerably easier to set columns widths using the "Fit" command from the Inspector and consider other adjustments as "Drag/Drop" of the column/row handles. Add to this that I have been working with spreadsheets for over 50 years and in about 5 different operating systems - some no longer in use.

Just for grins, I ported the data directly into an AW spreadsheet and it went without a hitch, as it should have done to Numbers.

Sparkgapper

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Answer 5

Aug 16, 2012 1:09 PM in response to Sparkgapper

Sparky,

Your resumé is impressive. My first spreadsheet program was VisiCalc on the Atari. So, as you can see, I'm a neophyte.

As I said above, I was just guessing. Without having a copy of your data to test with, I wouldn't have a clue why you were getting the bad behavior in Numbers on the import.

You have a solution, workaround such as it is.

Thanks for the feedback.

Jerry

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Answer 6

Badunit

Level 7

25,592 points

Aug 16, 2012 5:09 PM in response to Sparkgapper

Looking at the data being copy/pasted, I see a bunch of quotes in it that might be the culprit. The quotes are creating what Numbers is probably interpreting as strings (which, in your data, includes tabs, text, carriage returns) until another quote is encountered. I assume they are being used to indicate the data is the same as in the row above. Try removing the quotes from the document, replacing them with some other character or text or with the actual data. Assuming there are no other quotes in the document other than the ones being used like these ones, you can do it in one fell swoop with Find /Replace All.

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Answer 7

Sparkgapper Author

Level 1

32 points

Aug 17, 2012 8:29 AM in response to Badunit

THANKS Badunit. That was EXACTLY the problem. I changed all the " to | on the Pages document, selected all (oa c) then pasted (oa v) into Numbers 08 and it worked perfectly. Think I will use that | character instead of the quote mark from now on as it seems the least offensive while still maintaining the problamatic "Mirror Image" of the original.

Sparkgapper

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