Hi klsu,

thanks for your report here.
I think this is covered also in another issue.
Looking at
 - bug 43442
 - bug 69750
 - bug 79116
Any preference?
Cheers,
Cor

I'll try this again...from the correct account and as plain text...

Yep, sounds like 3 other versions of the same problem. Unfortunately, 
Excel has it right. My preference is whatever will allow me to put 1 
button on the tool bar that will allow me to just past the results I see 
in the area copied without its format. As I said, I cannot think of a 
single use for being able to highlight an area showing numbers, text and 
dates and then copying only numbers or text or dates or everything but 
numbers or text or dates. If I could, I would need it so seldom that it 
would not be worth the the extra time I waste not being able to copy all 
three with one click, which I do very often.

On 07/10/2014 02:03 AM, bugzilla-daemon@freedesktop.org wrote:

Hi klsu,

thanks for your report here.
I think this is covered also in another issue.
Looking at
  -bug 43442  <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43442>
  -bug 69750  <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69750>
  -bug 79116  <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79116>
Any preference?
Cheers,
Cor

4.3.0.4 now has defaults ticked for only Text, Numbers and Date/Time making it so much easier to perform copy/paste without formats which means that Conditional Formatting is no longer disrupted.

Hi klsu,

Looking at comment #3 I suggest to set this one as resolved.
OK?

I've looked at my original post relative to LO Calc 4.4.0 Beta2 Daily installed on 2014-12-18, and it's better, but still not there. I still cannot think of a single use for a Paste command that does not paste the entire copied area, without a high risk of not copying something important from the copied area. Obviously this isn't a bug ('though I did find another one in the process of checking), since the behavior is intentional, but intentional behavior that can cause problems that are worse than the feature being added is beneficial should be retired. There are 2 Paste Special operations I use so often that it's faster to add them as buttons to the toolbar: Paste (displayed) Values, and Paste Formats. In LO Calc 4.4.0 Beta2, neither of these functions are available as single function buttons; I have to use Paste Special..., which takes a lot more time and is more prone to errors because of all the settings that must be set (I remove the Copy and Paste buttons entirely, because the keyboard shortcuts are faster).

Having Paste Special retain the last used settings is correct, however, if someone wants to copy only the results of a calculated area that displays dates, numbers, and Text, Paste Special must be used; meaning that if someone also regularly performs special Paste operations, they're forced to use of Paste Special, only because someone saw fit to add a feature of questionable use. Who selects an area they want to copy only the displayed results of, but only wants the numbers, dates (which are really numbers) or non-numbers copied? If they only wanted part of the area copied, they'd have selected only that part of the area.

The typical purpose of Paste Values is to be able to copy areas without formatting (and comments), either because the formatting in the destination area is desired, because the formatting is not compatible with the application into which the copy is being made, or because only the displayed values need to be retained, for whatever reason.

Example: add the Paste Value and Paste Text buttons to your toolbars.
in cell A3 enter 5
in cell A4 enter =1/9
in cell B2 enter =NOW()
in cell B3 enter =TODAY()
in cell B4 enter =A4*A3
in cell B5 enter =LEFT(B6,1)
in cell B6 enter =SUBSTITUTE(A4,"0",A3)
in cell B7 enter =A3&"th"
select and copy range B2:B7
in cell D2 click the Paste Values button
in cell E2 click the Paste Text button
in cell C2 click the Paste Value and then the Paste Text button (Why would anyone want to copy only the numbers or only the column and row labels of an area?) 

As an engineer, I have uses spreadsheets a lot for many years, and I still cannot think of a single situation in which any of these results would be acceptable or even useful, but many engineering and financial situations where they could cause serious problems. The above example is just that. In real life, Paste (displayed) Values is often used to save results of a very large area so that an incomplete paste operation might not be noticed until part of a building fails or an account doesn't balance.

Also treating dates separately from numbers and text is not justified in real life: dates are just specially formatted numbers. Just because a number happens to be formatted as text, doesn't mean it's not a number or has no value to the person using it. Even Text has value (or you couldn't sort text, and Paste Special... with Add checked would ignore text).

So how should this be treated? LO Calc would be enhanced if the Paste Value button actually pasted all values in the copied area, and Paste Text button were replaced with a Paste Formats button. In my opinion, the separation of Text, Numbers and Dates in Paste Special... adds work, increases the chance for errors, and adds no useful functionality to LO Calc.

@jay:

Wasn't this something that you were looking in, paste options?
thanks,
Cor


(In reply to klsu from comment #5)

> being added is beneficial should be retired. There are 2 Paste Special
> operations I use so often that it's faster to add them as buttons to the
> toolbar: Paste (displayed) Values, and Paste Formats.....

@Cor: As the paste special submenu was only added to writer, i was thinking to bring it to calc as well and combining the current 'Paste Special...' entry and 'Paste Only' submenu into a single submenu, like below.

Paste Special >
  Unformatted Paste
  Only Text
  Only Numbers
  Only Forumlas
  - separator -
  More Options...