Yes, you are correct in that I open the 2nd file from Windows Explorer - I
usually have 2 or more Explorer windows open to work with. But why should
this interfere with the selection of tabs (sheets) in my Excel workbook? Is
this a 'bug' or a 'feature' of Excel? (!) Is there anything that I can do (eg
some obcure setting in Excel / Windows registry) to stop this from happening?
--
Philip



"Dave Peterson" wrote:

How are you opening the second file?

This is my guess...

I'm betting that you open the second workbook by double clicking on the file (in
windows explorer (say)).

And then when you paste, the second instance of excel isn't smart enough to
paste a 3D range.

(That's the only way I could duplicate the problem.)

If I opened them in the same instance (via file|open), then excel behaved
nicely.

(I could break the complete paste if I had a macro that kill the cutcopymode,
though--but I couldn't make it paste to exactly one sheet.)



Bannor wrote:

Wow - I am impressed by the rapid response - I only posted my problem
yesterday afternoon!

It appears to me that we may have a small misunderstanding; perhaps I have
not explained my problem adequately. In effect, what I want to do is to copy
a 3-D block of data from one workbook to another. In the source workbook, I
select the tabs of the sheets from which I want to copy data, then select the
cells I want to copy and press CTRL-C.

Then I switch to the destination workbook and select the cell where I want
to paste the data, on the 'top' sheet of where I want it to go, and select
any type of paste ('normal' paste; paste special/values; etc). The data is
filled in from the selected cell, which becomes the top-left cell of the
pasted data. Thus I copy a 3-D block of data from one workbook to another -
exactly what I want.

My problem is that if I select my 3-D block of data and THEN open the
destination workbook, the 3-D reference is 'forgotten' and I end up pasting
data only from the 1st page (a 2-D block of data). This is NOT what I want.
This happens when I have selected multiple tabs in the source workbook, and
irrespective of whether I have actually selected data and pressed CTRL-C or
not. I can of course reselect the tabs I want, etc, but it is annoying to
have to do this.

I perform this process many times in a day with various data from various
files, which makes this problem annoying. If it was just a once-a-day affair
I could remember to make sure that the destination workbook is open first -
but I usually have several Excel files open at any one time, and sometimes
lose track of what is open and what is not. I have a very demanding job -
busy all day!

Anyway, like I said - sheets should stay selected until I unselect them, no
matter what.
--
Philip

"Gord Dibben" wrote:

Bannor

I do not experience this problem of the source book losing its multiple sheet
selection.

However, you cannot copy data from multiple sheets and paste to another
workbook.

You could copy the sheets themselves, but not parts of each at same time.


Gord Dibben Excel MVP

On Wed, 16 Nov 2005 02:16:06 -0800, Bannor
wrote:

I often have to move or copy data from multiple worksheets at a time and
paste them in a new workbook. My problem is that when I have multiple sheets
selected, and then open another workbook, Excel 'forgets' about the multiple
sheets I have selected, and remembers only the first sheet. The result is
that when I think I am copying data from mutliple sheets at once (which is
what I want to do), I am actually only copying data from the first sheet.
This is extremely annoying - why does Excel think it knows what I want to do
better than I do? If I select multiple sheets I expect them to STAY selected
until I un-select them myself - even if I open another workbook! I am using
Windows XP Prof., and Office 2003 with SP2 (applying SP2 neither caused nor
solved this problem).



--

Dave Peterson