Paste Values and Transpose a Range in Collabora Online Calc

Deployment and evidence boundary

Collabora Online Calc in a desktop browser, English interface, editable ODS practice file. Online controls were checked in the vendor’s historical 25.04 branch source at commit 3847fbcfe35a234544cf163ed9e004a3d197337c on 19 October 2026; this historical source snapshot is not a current development head or certification of any hosted build. Record the actual COOLWSD and LOKit versions from Help → About, browser, interface, and storage host before testing. Desktop Collabora Office and mobile apps are outside scope.

The exercise has independently checked synthetic expectations, not a live application result. No current native GUI or authorized hosted test file was available, so native screenshots and save/reopen evidence remain pending. An unavailable, renamed, disabled, or policy-blocked control is a stop condition; do not substitute a desktop-only route. Keep the original safe and work in a disposable file created through your existing authorized host. Host permissions, autosave timing, revision history, and clipboard policy are not established by the Online source.

Freeze calculated results without keeping their formulas, then rotate a separate two-by-three fixture. Both operations use clear destination rectangles so accidental overwrites are obvious.

Prepare source and destination cells

Start a blank sheet named Paste. Enter all the following; leave every other cell blank.

Cell or range	Exact entries
A1:C1	Item, Units, Amount
A2:C2	Kits, 2, =B2*3
A3:C3	Repairs, 4, =B3*3
E1	Snapshot
F2	RIGHT GUARD
E4	LOWER GUARD
A6:C6	North, South, West
A7:C7	10, 20, 30
G6	RIGHT GUARD
E9	LOWER GUARD

Apply bold to C2:C3 only. Confirm their displayed values are 6 and 12 and the formula bar contains formulas. E2:E3 and E6:F8 must be empty.

Paste a values-only snapshot

1. Copy C2:C3 using the spreadsheet clipboard shortcut. Select E2. In Online’s compact menu choose Edit → Paste Special; the tabbed Home Paste dropdown is another entry point when present. The checked Online code explicitly routes this command through browser clipboard handling. Follow any in-app instruction to press the paste shortcut; do not accept an unexpected browser permission or bypass a host copy restriction.
2. Continue only when the spreadsheet Paste Special dialog is visible. If a generic format-selection dialog or text-import dialog appears instead, cancel, recopy the two cells from this document, and retry.
3. Turn Run immediately off before selecting any preset, if that checkbox is present. If Values Only is available, select it to load its settings. Otherwise explicitly disable Paste all, enable numeric values, and disable formulas, text, date/time, formats, comments, objects, and other content categories. Set operation to None, shifting to none/do not shift, and turn off Transpose, Link, and Skip empty cells if offered. Read the actual dialog labels; the core Help describes these settings but does not prove that every hosted build exposes them. If the content choices cannot be verified, cancel and keep this exercise pending.
4. Apply and inspect E2:E3. They should display 6, 12; the formula bar should contain literal numbers, without an initial equals sign. Their formatting should remain the previously plain destination formatting. Confirm F2 and E4 are unchanged.
5. Change B2 to 5: C2 becomes 15, C3 remains 12, while E2:E3 remains 6, 12. That independence is the point of the snapshot.

Transpose a separate range

Copy A6:C7, select E6, and reopen Paste Special. Do not trust retained options from the previous paste. First turn Run immediately off if present. Enable all content or select the Transpose All preset if offered, enable Transpose, leave Link off, choose no arithmetic operation, no shift, and turn Skip empty cells off. If using a preset, inspect its resulting settings before applying. The source contains only text and numeric constants, so no formula-adjustment ambiguity is involved.

After applying, the exact target is:

Cell	Expected value
E6	North
F6	10
E7	South
F7	20
E8	West
F8	30

G6 and E9 must still contain their guard labels. Change source C7 to 35: F8 must remain 30 because the transpose is a snapshot. To refresh it, copy A6:C7 again and repeat the same fully specified transpose settings into E6. Final F8 must be 35, with the other five cells unchanged.

Save, reopen, and recover

Before the final save, choose and record the actual practice filename and its host folder/location or stable file identity in your test log. If two files have the same title, distinguish them by that host identity; a downloaded copy is a different file. Finish the current cell edit with Enter before saving. Use the available Save command and wait for the host’s saved indication; a visible value or another editor’s cursor does not prove durable storage. Close only after that indication, reopen the recorded filename at that exact host location or stable file identity, and compare the final checkpoint below. If saving fails or the host is disconnected, record the intended cells and values separately and resolve storage access before closing. Do not assume edits survive a disconnected tab.

For an optional reset exercise, first preserve the final saved file, then make a separate authorized practice copy with a different filename and record its host location or stable identity. Confirm that this reset copy, not the preserved final file, is active. Re-enter the exact initial fixture in that copy. Do not depend on Undo after reopening, and do not restore a shared historical revision over someone else’s changes.

Final checkpoint after reopening: C2:C3 15, 12; E2:E3 6, 12 without formulas or source bold; transposed E6:F8 ending in West, 35; all four guards intact. For reset in the separate copy, clear E2:E3 and E6:F8, restore B2 2 and C7 30, and leave the original formulas and guards intact. Then explicitly reset Paste Special to no transpose, no link, no arithmetic operation, and no shifting before any ordinary follow-on paste.

If a target contains unrelated or unexpected data, cancel before overwriting. The refresh above intentionally replaces only the known exercise snapshot in E6:F8: first verify those six cells match the prior snapshot and that G6 and E9 still contain the guard labels, then allow that replacement. No neighboring or unrelated cells may be overwritten. Copying cells to an unrelated application can carry different formats or formula text; this guide proves neither external clipboard behavior nor a cross-document live link.

Sources and testing disclosure

• Online spreadsheet menu source
• Online clipboard handling
• Core Paste Special help, conditional on Online exposure

Vendor source and documentation were reviewed; synthetic expectations were computed independently. Source-code review is not native application execution. Preserve deployment-specific verification and publication holds. No screenshot is supplied because no matching current GUI capture was available.