*sizing* font in Numbers on a mac

[MaryAnn]

I have imported a .xlsx file on to my mac and need to put new data in it. However, the copied and pasted data is a different font SIZE than what is in the spreadsheet. I keep trying to find a way to click on the existing data, find out what font size it is, and then tell the new pasted-in text to be that same font size. However, all I can find is "make it bigger" or "make it smaller" which is unsatisfactory because none of the biggers or smallers match what was there to start with, which is what I'm trying to do. Is this impossible in Numbers? All I want to do is find out, for example, that the existing data has font size 12 or whatever, and then tell what I pasted in to be the same size, not "bigger" or "smaller" than it started out.

I have the mac because taking a PC online has always resulted in disaster ("We will now update your software, without your permission or control, at which point your computer is going to die and you will never, EVER, get it back the way it was") while my macs just breeze through without a problem for years on end. However, I find the "helpful" mac programs extremely frustrating to use because they do not allow the specifics I was accustomed to on a PC. I'm whining.

[Thomas Maurice Booth]

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH17057?lo ... cale=en_US" target="_blank

Does that help?

TMB

[Donn]

How about this -- bring up TextEdit, paste what you have there, and you'll see the font size at the top, and of course you can change it there and re-copy it.

I heartily wish these hyper-accommodating softwares would allow some control over what attributes paste in. I would think it would be the common case, that you'd want no source attributes, but instead I always get all of them - color, the works.

[MaryAnn]

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH17057?lo ... cale=en_US" target="_blank

Does that help?

TMB

Thanks, but no, that is the definition of the problem:
"Click the small arrows to the right of the font size to make the font larger or smaller."

[MaryAnn]

How about this -- bring up TextEdit, paste what you have there, and you'll see the font size at the top, and of course you can change it there and re-copy it.

I heartily wish these hyper-accommodating softwares would allow some control over what attributes paste in. I would think it would be the common case, that you'd want no source attributes, but instead I always get all of them - color, the works.

That is a PITA but appears to be a workable solution. My other workable solution is to get out my Win 10 PC that never goes on the net, put the @#$%@# file on a thumb drive, take it over there, excel it, save it, bring it back to the mac to put back on line. That is probably a bigger PITA than what you suggested though. TY.

[bort]

Buy Excel for Mac?

But even that sucks, and is annoying to use compared to the Windows version.

BTW, I use a Mac at work and had never tried Numbers. I saw your issue right away and said "oh hell no." Never using that program again.

[Donn]

FWIW, the OpenOffice spreadsheet shows font name and size for current text cell, and lets you change it, and it's free. I use spreadsheets very rarely, so no idea if it's useful, but I have used it once without serious problems, and I'm positive I paid nothing for it - so far, so good. Turn off URL recognition in the Autocorrect options, by the way.

[Donn]

Cool! I'm going to be able to use this in OpenOffice, where it costs an extra dialogue (at which point you get to choose whether to keep or lose the style), but takes a smaller keyboard chord (shift-cmd-V).

[MaryAnn]

The Paste and match style does work, but requires some iterations (pre-existing style in the cell.) Better than what I have found yet. Smart dude, that Wade.

[binlove]

Hi Maryanne, I tried to create a file with the same issue using your description. If I understood properly, you should be able to select the cells where you want to know the font (in this case, the ones with the pasted values), clicking the Format Inspector in the top right, and then clicking the Text button.

I put a screenshot below with orange markings showing where these things are. Apologies for the size, you may have to scroll both down and right to see everything. In this case, I selected the cells where I had pasted in values from Excel. One tricky bit: if you select a group of cells that have more than one font size, the trick I am showing you will grey out the font indicator since it would have to show multiple values.

Let me know if I misunderstood your problem.

Screen Shot 2017-01-31 at 8.19.44 AM.png

[MaryAnn]

A friend clued me in to LibreOffice, I downloaded it, and it works enough like Excel that it is intuitive for me. Mac is "too" helpful for me but extremely useful for being on the net without having the computer die on a regular basis. Sophos DID find malware yesterday and removed it. So it's out there....