Pasting into multiple table cells in Publisher

[Print Monkey]

I tried to search for other topics on this because I'm sure someone else has run into this problem before, but I can't seem to figure out how to paste text in such a way that it ends up in different cells in a table in Publisher.

Examples: Copy a table column from a spreadsheet, select upper left table cell in Publisher table, paste, the text ends up in that one cell as different "paragraphs".

Copy newline-separated list of names from a text editor, select upper left cell in Publisher table, paste, everything ends up in one cell. (In a spreadsheet, each line ends up in a different cell in one column.)

Same, but select multiple cells in the Publisher table before pasting, everything still ends up in one cell.

This is totally different from the behavior of pretty much all spreadsheet software or anything else with tables that I've used where text strings separated by newlines end up in different rows and things separated by tabs (and possibly commas) end up in different columns when pasted into a table.

Does anyone know of a workaround? It doesn't look like you can data merge directly into a table, only a data merge grid, and that would be rather troublesome for simple cases anyway.

It seems like the tables in Publisher need some improvement. I've run into some other things that make them more cumbersome than usual, like the behaviors when inserting columns and the inability to move columns.

[Print Monkey]

I had tried Paste Special, but the only option i get is "unicode text".

So I pasted the list of words into a word processor, then copied it back out so there should be RTF on the clipboard, then tried "paste special"ing it into the table as RTF Text (the option did show up this time), but no luck. I tried this with selecting a whole column, and with creating a new table and selecting the whole thing.

It seems like Publisher is extremely picky about what it considers to be table-format data in some unknown manner.

I also tried copying a few rows of TSV (tab separated) text and no luck. There should be an option for "CSV Text" and "TSV Text" in "Paste Special" but it seems this doesn't exist.

[laurent32]

You can drop an excel file and you'll get the table you're looking for… I think ?

[Oufti]

47 minutes ago, Print Monkey said:

I can't seem to figure out how to paste text in such a way that it ends up in different cells in a table in Publisher.

A simple Paste is all that is needed, provided that you have selected exactly the right number of rows and columns in the target table.

 

(BTW, I don't see any Paste special in my Edit menu…? Is there something special to do for it to appear?)

[Print Monkey]

27 minutes ago, laurent32 said:

You can drop an excel file and you'll get the table you're looking for… I think ?

I was hoping to avoid that kind of extra step but I'll give that a try.

 

12 minutes ago, Oufti said:

A simple Paste is all that is needed, provided that you have selected exactly the right number of rows and columns in the target table.

 

(BTW, I don't see any Paste special in my Edit menu…? Is there something special to do for it to appear?)

I tried this but it still didn't work. With plain text using newlines, everything still ends up in one cell.

Paste Special is just under Paste in the edit menu. It's there even when there's only one "special" option and I don't remember having to enable any special features to get it.....

[Oufti]

3 hours ago, Print Monkey said:

3 hours ago, Oufti said:

A simple Paste is all that is needed, provided that you have selected exactly the right number of rows and columns in the target table.

I tried this but it still didn't work. With plain text using newlines, everything still ends up in one cell.

Sorry for the false hope... It worked well with content copied from a selection in Numbers (Apple's spreadsheet), but not if it is copied from a simple text editor.

(Transiting from text editor to spreadsheet to Publisher works well too, but is tedious if not automatised.)

 

[Oufti]

3 hours ago, Print Monkey said:

Paste Special is just under Paste in the edit menu. It's there even when there's only one "special" option and I don't remember having to enable any special features to get it.....

Thank you. That's indeed what I saw on the video above but this is what I see at home:

 

[Print Monkey]

19 minutes ago, Oufti said:

Thank you. That's indeed what I saw on the video above but this is what I see at home:

 

Hmm.... wonder if the french string was left out of the string library. Do you see it under Settings->Shortcuts?

[Oufti]

No I don't. Could be it has been lost in translation…  

P.S. After some research in the Help files, I found Paste special is a Windows only function.

 

Thank you for your very pedagogical captures. 

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, anto said:

For MacOS it works without Paste special... function.

Does it work for you / can you demonstrate the paste procedure after copying some tabbed text from a text editor (not from an Affinity table)?

As the OP I get all copied text in the first of the selected cells only with the tabs and paragraph breaks as special characters within this cell.

Whereas it appears to work with no cell selected but the table selected with the Move Tool. (and thus always starts at cell A1)

[laurent32]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Whereas it appears to work with no cell selected but the table selected with the Move Tool

Thanks @thomaso, you've solved the problem I think !

[thomaso]

46 minutes ago, anto said:

Yes it works. If text tabbed i can paste it directly without using Paste special... as for MacOs as for Windows.

Your videos are from Windows – if you get the same in macOS maybe there was an improvement in V2?

To me in V1 every pasting with the Table Tool results in one cell only, regardless of cell selection or just the placed cursor.
Whereas only with Move Tool I get the text pasted across several cells (but as mentioned starting in A1).

[thomaso]

2 minutes ago, anto said:

Here video from MacOS

Ah, you were copying from a formatted text while I used a pure text file as source.

Indeed, it also works in V1 with macOS if I copy from a formatted text document (e.g. .rtf / not .txt) and paste with the Table Tool with any / at least one cell selected. – Thanks for getting me there!

[thomaso]

29 minutes ago, anto said:

If you want to insert pure text, select cells where you want to insert data, then use File-->Place and select your file .txt

Thanks, this works, too! – Good to know if I want to place an entire txt file (not a partial text selection only).

[Print Monkey]

In windows if I copy a TSV text from a file then select the whole table with the move tool and paste, it does go into different cells almost as expected but there are a bunch of blank rows between the rows possibly due to the \r\n newline ending or something.

If I select cells in a table and use Place then I can place a TSV file without this empty extra rows problem, but the Place file selector won't let me select CSV or TSV file extensions. I have to rename the file to .txt to get it to let me place it.

Thanks everyone for the help.

It seems like Affinity has lots of little issues with tables and they really need some sort of general overhaul.....

[Carolina Illanes]

Hello. I am thinking on buying Affinity but before I do that I must check that I can paste using paste special on my documents.  I need them to be paste as text, not a table, and if in my excel sheet a value changes my values on the Affinity documents will be changed.

• Paste link allows you to insert a hyperlink that connects to a separate document or presentation.

Thanks in advance for your answer!

Carolina

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Carolina Illanes said:

I need them to be paste as text, not a table, and if in my excel sheet a value changes my values on the Affinity documents will be changed.

Hi @Carolina Illanes, welcome to the Affinity forums!

In Affinity you can't place an excel file (e.g. .xls, .csv) as a linked resource that gets auto-updated inside Affinity.

Affinity Publisher is capable of opening, importing, placing and exporting this document, raster and vector graphic formats:
https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Appendix/fileformat.html&title=Supported file formats

Your quote about "paste link" appears to refer to "hyperlinks" for export as PDF and to open the linked file via the PDF.

[Hangman]

7 hours ago, Carolina Illanes said:

Hello. I am thinking on buying Affinity but before I do that I must check that I can paste using paste special on my documents.  I need them to be paste as text, not a table, and if in my excel sheet a value changes my values on the Affinity documents will be changed.

Hi @Carolina Illanes and another warm welcome to the forums,

Could you perhaps provide a little more information in terms of what you want to achieve...

You can certainly copy text from an Excel Spreadsheet and paste it as unformatted text in Publisher but the text wouldn't have any direct link back to your spreadsheet so changes made to the spreadsheet wouldn't be reflected in your Publisher document...

Publisher does have a Data Merge feature which would link back to your spreadsheet and reflect any changes made but each row and/or column of text would appear effectively in a cell in Publisher though you can still determine the layout of the content so it doesn't have to be a rigid table format, e.g., you could use Data Merge to create Business Card artwork with N-Up per page... Note: Data Merge is an Affinity Publisher option so not available in Affinity Designer or Photo.

If you are able to let us know what you are attempting to do we can hopefully, provide some alternative options for you.

You can also download a trial of the Affinity apps from the Serif website if you want to try them out to see if they meet your needs.

[Oufti]

10 hours ago, Carolina Illanes said:

I am thinking on buying Affinity but before I do that I must check […]

You can install a time-limited trial version of Affinity: 

https://affinity.serif.com/fr/affinity-pricing/ 

[Carolina Illanes]

6 hours ago, Hangman said:

Hi @Carolina Illanes and another warm welcome to the forums,

Could you perhaps provide a little more information in terms of what you want to achieve...

You can certainly copy text from an Excel Spreadsheet and paste it as unformatted text in Publisher but the text wouldn't have any direct link back to your spreadsheet so changes made to the spreadsheet wouldn't be reflected in your Publisher document...

Publisher does have a Data Merge feature which would link back to your spreadsheet and reflect any changes made but each row and/or column of text would appear effectively in a cell in Publisher though you can still determine the layout of the content so it doesn't have to be a rigid table format, e.g., you could use Data Merge to create Business Card artwork with N-Up per page... Note: Data Merge is an Affinity Publisher option so not available in Affinity Designer or Photo.

If you are able to let us know what you are attempting to do we can hopefully, provide some alternative options for you.

You can also download a trial of the Affinity apps from the Serif website if you want to try them out to see if they meet your needs.

Thanks so much for your answer. I will download a trial to see if Affinity meet my needs. I write knitting patterns using Word and Excel. All my word text comes from my excel sheets. I have attached a file explaining what I do. 

Paste Link.docx

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, Carolina Illanes said:

my word text comes from my excel sheets

If I understand your word.doc right you want to copy/paste selected text from Excel or Word into APub and replace an eventually existing text in APub without losing its text style attributes? This might mean you want to use the paste option "Paste Special" (available in Affinity for Windows).

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/ObjectControl/copyPasteOptions.html&title=Copying and pasting objects

[Old Bruce]

From your .docx file:

"I make a right click on my copied text in order to open the following dialog to make sure that the format is kept if my excel values are changed" 

Once you paste something into a Publisher file it is written in stone. Changing the values or formatting in the Excel document will not change anything in the Publisher document. If you use Publisher's Data Merge you can re-generate the Publisher file to get a new Publisher document with the newly updated values from the newly updated Excel file. But not the Formating in the Excel file, by formatting I mean bold, italic, different font-family or size.

[Hangman]

19 minutes ago, Carolina Illanes said:

Thanks so much for your answer. I will download a trial to see if Affinity meet my needs. I write knitting patterns using Word and Excel. All my word text comes from my excel sheets. I have attached a file explaining what I do. 

Hi @Carolina Illanes,

Are you effectively using a grading spreadsheet to calculate the stitch and row counts?

My understanding is that you want to maintain a live link between your Excel Spreadsheet and a Publisher document so that any updates to the spreadsheet will auto-update the Publisher file, would that be the correct assumption?

If so, then this would be possible using the Data Merge feature of Publisher...

What would be really helpful is if you have a sample spreadsheet you are happy to upload together with a sample Word document that shows how the knitting pattern is laid out in Word. With that we can put something together to demonstrate how that could work for you with Publisher, assuming the assumptions are correct...

[Old Bruce]

Just now, Hangman said:

My understanding is that you want to maintain a live link between your Excel Spreadsheet and a Publisher document so that any updates to the spreadsheet will auto-update the Publisher file, would that be the correct assumption?

If so, then this would be possible using the Data Merge feature of Publisher...

When I see the term auto-update I think of how linked Photos can be updated automatically if we have that preference setting. Data Merge doesn't do this.

[Hangman]

49 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

When I see the term auto-update I think of how linked Photos can be updated automatically if we have that preference setting. Data Merge doesn't do this.

Auto-update is the wrong term as in you'd have to click the Update option in the Data Merge Panel and Regenerate the merged Document, so it's a manual update and certainly not as flexible as linking the Excel file to Word but if I've understood the question correctly (which I may not have done), it's still technically possible to achieve, it's just a bit more long-winded in Publisher...