The Copy Special utility

When copying and pasting data from a List View into another application a problem can arise when a column in the EMu List View contains paragraphs of text or tables of values. In some instances, one or more carriage return symbols (a square box) may display in place of a newline; data from separate rows may display on a single line, etc.:

Excel

This can occur because different applications and platforms expect a particular character at the end of a paragraph (in text fields) or at the end of a row (in a table of values) and that character may be different from that which EMu uses by default. For instance:

  • Macintosh computers expect a Carriage Return (CR) at the end of a paragraph.
  • Applications such as Microsoft Word on a Windows platform expect a Carriage Return and a Newline (CR+NL).
  • Applications in a UNIX environment expect a Newline (NL).
  • Microsoft Excel on a Windows platform expects a Newline (NL).
  • Other applications may expect some other character or combination of characters.

The Copy Special utility allows you to specify what character(s) or notation should be used at the end of a paragraph or row: