Copying cells to another worksheet changed references

  • Thread starter Thread starter Colin Higbie
  • Start date Start date
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Colin Higbie

I have an Excel Workbook with multiple worksheets. Until this morning, when
I copied a row or cells from one worksheet to the next, if the cell
referenced another with a fixed axis, say, as D$59, when I paste it onto
another sheet it still referred back to the cell on the original sheet. So,
after pasting, it would be:

='SheetRef'!D$59

Excel would automatically add the 'SheetRef'!

When I pasted this morning, the calculated value was wrong. When I looked at
the cell, it's because it was no longer referring back to the original
sheet. It still said D$59, now referring to D59 on the new worksheet instead
of the old one.

Specifically, on the first worksheet, cell I42 says:
=D$59*H42

and when I move it, I want it to say

='SheetRef'!D$59*H42

So the variable reference H42 changes to the new sheet, but the fixed
reference D$59 still applies to the old sheet. This is how it always worked
until this morning.

I don't think I changed any settings in Excel. What determines whether or
not a pasted cell still refers to the original worksheet or the same cell on
the new worksheet?

Please help.

Thanks,
Colin
 
I think that you did something different this morning.

Your first paragraph says you copied the cell, then pasted.

And later:
and when I move it, I want it to say

='SheetRef'!D$59*H42
Click to expand...

When you Edit|Cut (not copy), then paste, you'll get the behavior you want.

But what happened when you copy|pasted the cell is normal behavior.
 
Ah, so the result is different when copying and pasting than when cutting
and pasting. Thanks!

I can accept that, but I don't like it. In general, I don't like how Excel
treats the clipboard. It's unique among Windows programs. Pretty much
everything else uses what's on the clipboard. Excel kills the clipboard if
you do any operations on a cell (copy a cell, then type in a cell, then you
can't paste it anymore, because what you "copied" is no longer selected).

I assume everyone else must prefer this odd behavior, but I'm really
surprised it's acceptable to have 1 program that violates the most basic
principles of the human interface guidelines.

- Colin
 
Colin Higbie said:
I can accept that, but I don't like it. In general, I don't like how Excel
treats the clipboard. It's unique among Windows programs. Pretty much
everything else uses what's on the clipboard. Excel kills the clipboard if
you do any operations on a cell (copy a cell, then type in a cell, then you
can't paste it anymore, because what you "copied" is no longer selected).

I assume everyone else must prefer this odd behavior, but I'm really
surprised it's acceptable to have 1 program that violates the most basic
principles of the human interface guidelines.
Click to expand...

Don't assume anyone else is any more pleased with this than you are. There's
an unfortunately large bounty of original 512K Mac 'functionality' that
Microsoft has never bothered to fix. Microsoft prefers to make Excel an ever
more integrated part of Office than a better spreadsheet, so the smart money
would bet on flashing text being implemented before Windows-standard
clipboard functionality.
 
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