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.

[anto]

Look at video, maybe it helps. (first 48sec)

 

[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.

[anto]

3 minutes ago, Print Monkey said:

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

It depends what kind of text you have copied. Try to copy formated table from word and you will have option Rich text format.

[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. 

[anto]

4 hours ago, Oufti said:

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

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

When you want to paste table, select it in Publisher using letters above: A, B, C, D, etc.

 

 

[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 !

[anto]

26 minutes ago, thomaso said:

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)?

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

Or select rows where you want to insert text

 

 

[anto]

32 хвилини тому thomaso сказав:

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

Yes. I can also insert it wherever I want

 

[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).

[anto]

9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

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

Yes. Here video from MacOS

 

 

[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!

[anto]

6 minutes ago, thomaso said:

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

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

[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.