How to make formula result editable text

carly B

I'm trying to string the results of several form questions into one cell — but I want to be able to copy/paste/AND edit that combined text in the cell. How? When I go in all I can do is edit the the formula, not the actual resulting text.

Here's the specifics: I have several mandatory fields on a form that I want filled out, with logic dependencies based on previous answers. This creates a LOT of columns.

To clean it up for the assigned person, I want all of those answers compiled into one cell. I've used this formula:

=JOIN([Provided content]@row:Email@row, CHAR(10))

But once I get that result, I have two problems.

1. Copy/paste the text. Often those "details of the request" need to be copy/pasted into another program. But when you click in the cell, it will only copy the full row of content, not the text in that single cell.
2. Editing the text. The assigned person may need to edit the content in that detail field as the job progresses. I've hidden all the original columns because it's too much to sort through. How can you edit the content in that cell.

I think what I want is to join all the cells together, and then copy but not link the content into this new cell. Then have that copy be editable text. But how?

Paul Newcome

You would need to leverage the API, the premium add-on Bridge, or another third party app. One thing that may make updates easier is training your users to use the row menu to select "Edit". This puts the row in a vertical format instead of a horizontal format and generally tends to be easier to navigate.

Adam Murphy

Hi Carly, I would move all the post form submission work to another sheet and leave my JOIN field in the form sheet. I would add an automation to the form sheet to move row to my "working" sheet which will move the values of the fields without moving the formulas, thus making them editable. Would that work?