It’s easy enough to select multiple ADJACENT cells with the keyboard and/or the mouse and/or trackpad. But what about NON-ADJACENT CELLS? Say you wan to select column A and column C, but not column B?
If it matters at all, I’m on MacOS Sierra. I’ve tried several combinations of CTRL, ALT, COMMAND, SHIFT, but to no avail. I want to be told that there is a way.
The question was asked at least once, but no upvotes and conflicting information elsewhere encourage me to ask again:
Hello,
on my Ubuntu i can first select column A by clicking on the Header A, then hold CTRL and click Header C to select column C.
I expect that MacOS can do something equivalent at least.
Excellent suggestion librebei. This indeed works as expected on MacOS Sierra. The modifier key is COMMAND rather than CTRL, but it basically works. Good to know. (I don’t often select entire columns, which is why I hadn’t tried it)
P.S. At this time I do not have enough points to upvote, but I’ll be sure to do so as soon as my credit is high enough.
I haven’t access to a Mac, whatever OS version. There may be a specific problem with the modification keys.
I don’t know a way to do multiselection without the mouse.
I can confirm for Win that the ways described in the source linked to the second variant in the OQ are basically still working.
There may have changed some (LibO) version dependent details concerning the effects of a second or further Ctrl+Click under specific circumstances. Negation of previous selection? As far as I can tell negation only takes place if the action starts with a selected cell or with a completely selected colomn or row. The start decides whether the action, subsequently touching previously selected and unselected cells as well, will persistently perform ‘select’ or ‘unselect’. A distinguishing persisting ‘negate’ seems not to exist.
Hope you find specific answers concerning the Mav OS versions.
Win: Behaviour unchanged insofar over a long time now. Presently: Win 10
LibO: Judging from my memory, behaviour unchanged insofar over a long time now. Presently LibO V 5.4.1
Thanks Lupp. Okay, so I don’t actually have a mouse, which is perhaps why I had been struggling. But I discovered a way to do it based on the suggestions you made. STEP 1: Position the cursor on one cell, then PRESS AND HOLD SHIFT as you move the CURSOR for multiple celle selection. 2: RELEASE SHIFT. 3. PRESS AND HOLD COMMAND and Position the cursor on a non-contiguous cell and SELECT CELLS one at a time or PRESS SHIFT AND SELECT MULTIPLE CELLS.
Or to explain it differently, what WILL NOT WORK is attempting to select multiple non-contiguous cells WHILE HOLDING THE SHIFT KEY. YOU NEED TO RELEASE SHIFT in between actions on COMMAND. In my experiments anyhow (I’m on an out-of-the-box non-tweaked MacBook Sierra, so my experiments are unlikely to be biased by keyboard tweaks). Thanks again. Will upvote as soon as I have enough reps.
P.S. Just to be clear, the typical behavior of the COMMAND key on MacOS is like the CTRL key on Windows.
Here are 2 methods to select non-contiguous cells on MacOS Sierra.
The first method is to SELECT NON-CONTIGUOUS COLUMNS, e.g. A and C. As suggested by librebel:
The second method is to SELECT NON-CONTIGUOUS CELLS, e.g. A1:A3 and C1:C3. Following up suggestions by Lupp:
Please corroborate my story, thanks.
The crucial move I was missing is: RELEASE SHIFT, PRESS COMMAND, and later PRESS SHIFT AGAIN
You can click on the cell with text bar picture in the bottom bar:
Choosing “Adding selection” lets you un/select multiple disjoint cells/cols/rows/ranges using regular mouse clicks.
Libreoffice Calc 5.4.7