Remove columns

Is it possible that you have a lot more columns than you think, that it isn't replacing them by new ones but is simply moving other columns from the right? That is, if you have columns A-M and delete columns C-D, you will end up with A-K; you will still have columns labeled C and D even though you deleted them. Hiding columns would not do this, you would still have A-M but C&D would not be visible. Your document might have a lot of extra columns if it was imported from Excel, if the original author accidentally put something in a far right column.

If it is not that, maybe if you walked us through how you are deleting columns we might have a better idea about what is going on. You said you tried "selecting then deleting and hiding" them but you can't do both things to a column, at least not in that order, so I am not sure what method you are using to delete columns. If we can follow the same steps, maybe we can duplicate the problem. On the iPad (which is in your signature), you select the column(s) to delete then click on a column letter and select delete.

"The spreadsheet contains 10 columns in all and about 80 rows."

Do you mean "The table has only 10 columns containing data"?

The Table has, according to an earlier post, at least 55 columns. Column 55 is the one labelled "BC".

I suspect there's stray data in one or more far off cell(s) in the original Excel document, and that data caused the imported file to include the column(s) containing that data and all the columns between the useful 10 and the one(s) containing the stray data.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Andrew,

Did you import this spreadsheet from another app such as Excel?

Are there any merged cells in that Table?

Try this with a copy of that document open in Pages. With the table selected:

Menu > Table > Unmerge All Cells

Are there any hidden Columns or Rows in that table?

Try this with the table selected:

Menu > Table > Unhide All Columns

More information will lead to a solution 😉.

Regards,

Ian.

"I got an exclamation mark when I tried the first formula you suggested."

Do you mean an exclamation point in a red triangle? That's an Error triangle. Clicking it once will open the error message (created here deliberately).

If this is the message you got, the likely cause is that your region uses the comma ( , ) as the decimal separator. If that's the case, replace the comma in my formula with a semi-colon ( ; ).

Otherwise, check that the formula exactly matches the one shown below. ("include-headers" is entered as a zero ( 0 ), but displays in the editor as shown)

Here's the formula as it appears in the Formula Editor for my test table. The result is displayed in the selected cell.

The result is a count of all the columns in the table. The maximum value (shown) is the limit to the numbers of columns allowed in a Numbers table.

"When you say "column reference tabs" I'm assuming you mean the letters that label the columns. They are seemingly endless. After "Z", it starts on "AA, AB, AC..." and at the end of that it goes on to "BA, BB, BC...", etc.

Correct. The reference tabs appear only when at least one cell is selected in the table.

The largest possible tab label is IU, equivalent to 255.

"I've tried selecting multiple columns and deleting them, but they reappear again."

As noted above by Badunit, they are not "reappearing." When you delete columns C, D, E and F from a table containing at least four more columns (G, H, I and J) to the right of these, those columns shift leftward and their labels shift four places toward the font of the alphabet. G becomes C, H becomes D, I becomes E and J becomes F. And so on.

"They are seemingly endless"

'Seemingly,' but they will end, somewhere before you reach column IV.

To get to the last column quickly, click on the bottom cell of the first empty column, then press command-right arrow.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Andrew,

I've not seen this behaviour in Numbers.

What version of Numbers are you using? (Numbers menu > About Numbers)

Here are some diagnostic steps to take:

Click on the first empty cell in Column A (add a row to the botom of th table if there are no empty cells in the column).

With the cell selected, type = to open the formula editor, then enter this formula:

COLUMNS(2:2,0)

Click the green checkmark to confirm the formula and close the editor.

What result do you get in the cell with the formula?

If the row and column reference tabs are not visible, click any cell in the table to activate it and display the reference tabs.

Scroll to the right. What is the highest letter (or pair of letters) you see in the column Reference tabs?

How well does this last letter/pair fit with the number in the cell with the COLUMNS formula? (Z=26, AZ=26+26, etc. IZ would equal 26 * 10, but that is past the maximum number of columns in a Numbers table.)

Scroll left to the first Empty column. Click on that column's reference tab to select the column. Move the pointer several columns to the right, then press and hold shift as you click on the last column you want to select for this test. Shift click adds the newly selected column and all columns between it and the earlier selected column to the selection.

Make a note of the letter labels of the first and last columns of the selection.

Go to the Table menu and select Delete Selected columns.

What result do you see in the cell with the COLUMNS formula?

What result do you see in the column reference tabs?

Regards,

Barry

If the spreadsheet is one table, you could select the part you want, Copy, then Paste into a brand new spreadsheet. Delete the default table of the new document and paste it directly to the white space to create a new table.