GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 344285
Copy function also copies hidden columns
Last modified: 2006-10-17 11:10:16 UTC
Please describe the problem: If I hide intermediate columns and then copy a rectangle (like A1:C30, with B column hidden) B column also gets copied. This makes it impossible to copy in a tabular format any two columns which are non-adjacent. I have to manually copy the two columns to a new sheet and then copy them out. FWIW Excel handles this correctly. Steps to reproduce: 1. Create three data columns with some rows in A, B and C 2. Select B column and hide it 3. Select A and C columns (upto soem rows) 4. Paste into another sheet or a text application Actual results: B column also gets copied Expected results: B column should not get copied. Does this happen every time? Yes Other information: Excel handles this correctly, and I think it is desirable behaviour.
I think Gnumeric's behaviour is correct. Typically, the hidden columns will contain intermediate calculations the last visible) column may depend on. Copying the table should therefore also copy the hidden columns. The only situation where I could envision omitting hiddden columns to be desirable is when one has a ono-formula table. But why use a spreadsheet program for that anyways?!
Then could we perhaps have a mechanism for copying only two columns?
Another thought: If the user did hide the columns and then copied them, I think the expectation is that hidden columns not get copied. The user can as well as unhide columns and copy. I cannot get the behaviour desired at all: I want to copy two columns which are non-adjacent. As a last resort, perhaps a perf to do this?
I can not replicate the behavior you describe in XL. Copying A1:C1 copies the hidden value in B1. The closest I can get is to select A1 then ctrl-click on C1 to select just those cells. Pasting that generates the desired results. Supporting dis-continuous copying will take some thought. Was there another way to do this ?
Yup, you are correct. It does copy all the hidden columns to another worksheet. Pehaps my initial bug report was somewhat misleading. The problem is when I want to export the copy selection to another program (say gedit). I hide the columns I do not want and then copy-paste. I still get hidden columns. XL handles that without copying the hidden columns. So I guess this is more about exporting to non-spreadsheet apps. Can something be done about this?
Thanks for the bug report. This particular bug has already been reported into our bug tracking system, but please feel free to report any further bugs you find. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 149824 ***