This is rather silly. How do I deselect cells in Calc? I can’t find a way to get rid of the “marching ants” selection that you get with copy/cut commands. The common Ctrl+D shortcut doesn’t work.
Hit Esc . (“Marching ants”) The copied contents will remain ready for another pasting.
Deselect cells (invert selection) from an existing selection: Ctrl+ Click into a cell (together with moving the mouse if deselection of a contiguous part of the selection is wanted).