Copying and filling new information into cells

[ooo2user]

Hi Calc Users,

I've been working on a rather large spreadsheet that requires a lot of editing including adding new data. My problem is everytime I would copy and paste new data in a blank cell that new data would replace existing information that follows. And I want that old data to come after the new data without replacing it.

For example, let's say I'm working on A1-20 and A1-20 has 1-20 filled and I want to add A-B-C-D starting in cell A6 so I insert a new cell between A6 and 7 and copy and paste A-B-C-D in the new cell between A6 and A7.

What happens is A-B-C-D replaces 6-7-8-9 so it's 1-2-3-4-5-A-B-C-D-10-11-etc when i want it to be 1-2-3-4-5-A-B-C-D-6-7-8-9-10 etc (these are cells going down).

The only way I found a way around this is to add a bunch of new cells (down), paste the new data then delete extra cells in between. But that's too time consuming. I just want to copy and paste new data without it replacing the existing information.

Does anyone have a solution where pasting new data will not replace existing information?

[Villeroy]

Use Edit>Paste Special (shortcut: Insert-key on most systems).
Select the cell flags you need or "All" and choose one of the "Insert"-options.
Your selection in this dialog is saved for the current session. So you just need to hit "Insert" and "Enter" next time.
As far as I know this works with spreadsheet cells copied from Calc only.
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[ooo2user]

Thanks a lot. This is what I did in case there are others with the same problem. So far, it only works with cells copied from Calc only.

Copy the information from Writer or notepad or wherever and paste into an empty cell
Go to cell where you want to paste the data. DON'T INSERT NEW CELL
Paste special - Operations: None - Shift Cells: DOWN

This is for text only not calculations. Having to copy from Writer to a empty Calc cell and then to the cell you want is a bit tedious though but it works.

[David]

Possibly? ....

Do paste it, but into another column. Then concatenate to get your result where you want it. You can easily hide columns not needed afterwards. To concatenate readily, set up a formula for as many columns as you would likely be using. If blank, nothing will be added, but when something is pasted there, it will show up in the cell with the formula. Data to be concatenated can even be in another sheet.

There might be some thinking on how to deal with concatenated hyphens in between characters if not pasted along with the rest of the data,

David.