Copy columns from Excel - copies more columns than I select

alpine · Post by **alpine** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:34 pm

Hi,

Great little program but I have an issue that is bugging me!

When I select all data from column 'a' and then select all data from 'd' (so I have highlighted 2 columns) and then copy, in Dplot when I paste I get an XY plot of data from columns a, b, c and d!!

Has anyone else seen this?

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:18 pm

Unfortunately that's nothing to do with DPlot. That's what Excel is copying to the clipboard. I have no idea why and it has always bugged me. I suppose it is to avoid confusion when you copy data that has different starting and/or ending rows.

Paste that data into Notepad (or anything else) and you'll get the same thing. You may get the expected results in another Office product that interprets the Excel BIFF format on the clipboard, but in any text editor you'll get columns A-D.

This was one of the primary reasons for developing the Excel Add-In. Is it missing something you want?

jsc · Post by **jsc** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:18 pm

You are correct. Just tried it with 2.2.7.0. Works as expected when you DDE the info from the DPlot menu in Excel, but picks up the extra columns when you paste.

But the root problem seems to be with Excel. I just pasted the same info into Notepad, and a contiguous block of data was pasted, ie, Excel sent the columns that were not selected as well. So I'd guess it's not DPlot's fault on this one, since it sees all of the data.

This is Excel from Office 2003 at least.

But workaround seems to be to hide the columns in Excel first. Then Excel puts only the columns you want on the clipboard.

Or just use XYYY from the menu, and if you want the data to go to the same plot, just select the append option from the DPlot options dialog first.

alpine · Post by **alpine** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:37 pm

OK thanks for the update on this. I can use the XYYY plugin. Some of the data I want to plot is spread across multiple files sometimes, so it is easier just to copy from different sources and paste into the same DPlot chart when this is needed. I can easily rearrange columns if necessary.

Thanks again for a great plotting solution.

alpine · Post by **alpine** » Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:40 pm

jsc wrote: ..., and if you want the data to go to the same plot, just select the append option from the DPlot options dialog first.

THat's a neat trick! Thanks for informing me about this!