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I'm attempting to paste a very large table of data containing names of colors and their HTML (hex) equivalent into OpenOffice, but it continues to format my colors as weird data types.

For example, "001489" turns into "1489", or "9E5330" turns into "1.79769313486232E+308", or "672E45" turns into "6.72000000000000E+047", etc. Also, values that only contain numbers are aligned to the right, instead of the left like normal text would

How do I make this data paste as plain text, including making them all align left?

NOTE this is the table that I'm attempting to paste into OpenOffice http://us.labelpartners.com/pantone_coated_table.html

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  • You don't want to copy the color formatting as well?
    – James P
    Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 14:56
  • I'm just trying to paste the text from the color codes exactly as they appear without OpenOffice changing them into numbers
    – Brian Leishman
    Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 15:03

1 Answer 1

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I have LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice but I believe the process should be the same since they are mostly the same program:

  1. Copy the table
  2. Go to Calc and Use Edit->Paste Special... or press Ctrl + Shift + v
  3. You are given the option to paste as HTML format or Unformatted text. Choose Unformatted text

  4. You are given another dialog where you can choose the data types for each column:

    Text import dialog

  5. Click on each column and set the Column type dropdown to Text

  6. Click OK and the data should be pasted without numbers being converted to scientific notation.

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  • 1
    also you can select range/multiple columns with Shift and Ctrl (+left mouse button or keyboard arrows)
    – LogicDaemon
    Commented Apr 24, 2015 at 15:52

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