Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 2, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Sharon has text in which information is separated by paragraph marks. She wants to copy it to a single cell in an Excel worksheet, but whenever she tries pasting the information, Excel separates the information into different cells based on the paragraph marks.
This behavior (recognizing the paragraph marks as the start of a new chunk of data) is normal in Excel. There is, however, an easy way to approach the problem. Follow these steps:
That's it; the information is pasted into the single cell. This works because you were in edit mode before you did the paste, so everything was done in the selected cell rather than going through Excel's normal import filter.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3164) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Ignoring Paragraph Marks when Pasting.
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