Description: For the sake of productivity, sometimes we prepare formulas to create other formulas. Then copy and paste them to the selected place in the sheet. But this approach is useless in Calc because when pasting a text array with references as "Unformatted Text", e.g.: =sum(A1:A4) =sum(B1:B4) It appears as text and is not interpreted as formulas in these cells. Steps to Reproduce: Version: 7.4.4.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 85569322deea74ec9134968a29af2df5663baa21 CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win Locale: pl-PL (pl_PL); UI: en-GB Calc: threaded Actual Results: Formula text pasted into a cell only works as a formula when you paste a single cell. Expected Results: - Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: -
Created attachment 184925 [details] Copying references short version.mkv
Created attachment 184926 [details] Cell references (single and multiple copy&paste).ods
In your screencast, at 00:13, you may see the unchecked "[] Evaluate formulas" checkbox ;)
Thank you! :-) And sorry for impatience. But now I see that this option would also be useful in the Paste Special window (Ctrl+Shift+V). Because as this example shows, this can happen not only when importing text, but also when copying cells. Then it would be possible to act like this: Paste Special -> Values Only (with "[v] Evaluate Formulas" checked). What do you think about it?
(In reply to Piotr Osada from comment #4) I strongly disagree. The "Values Only" means exactly that: it pastes *values*, not formulas. A curious use case of "we prepare strings, and now we want to turn them to formulas" can be solved in many ways, e.g., using Find&Replace (replace regex '.+' with '$0'), or using the plain text paste. But having a dedicated control for such exceptionally niche case in the Paste Special dialog would only bring confusion to vast majority of users ("what is that? Huh? Please repeat your explanation about how and in which case would it work and be needed?...").
Ok. I see the possible confusion. My use case is to copy ranges of cells that are referenced to different formulas to create another ones. So in this case import text is enough. I just think of having this option in two menus just for convenience. But it appears to be a bad idea.