Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere

Excel is a bit complicated for cut/copy/paste, because you have not only the content of the cells, but also references to cells. Cut and copy have subtly different behaviour that, I think, works well for most people's mental model.

Namely: Most instances of cut are followed by one paste, and really constitute an atomic move. That's why when you cut and paste something in Excel elsewhere, all references to cells that have been moved are updated, no matter whether they were inside the moved area or outside, and no matter whether they were relative or absolute. (Just the same as they're naturally updated if you insert or delete columns/rows above or to the left of the referenced cell).

That's why a cut "marks" the cut cells, and after you paste, nothing is marked anymore. You can't paste twice. It's akin to the Ghost Cut described in the article: an atomic move that only happens upon paste.

When you copy, however, and paste somewhere else, a) only the "relative" references among the moved cells are updated (neither absolute references nor references in cells that were not copied are updated); and b) the copied area remains "marked" and you can paste again and again.

Given the complexity of this (think about references that are ranges...), a) it's a wonder that it works as well as it does, doing the expected thing for most people most of the time, and b) it's understandable that you can't cut or copy, then modify the marked origin (it'll unmark the cells and abort the operation), then paste.

This means, incidentally, that a copy & delete in Excel is distinct from a cut.

the points on how undo interacts with this and the clipboard contents its also a good example of how relatively simple features can have a fairly high combined complexity to ensure the features do behave as expected if you use them in tandem.

nice writeup and cool solution :) thanks!

i see some comments about the move, and the cut & paste to be 3 actions etc. this is perhaps technically the case in current programs that you use, but conceptually and for most non-tech users this is not how the feature is presented. hence i think its a nice solution to fit the behavior to how its presented, rather than presenting more different ways to manipulate the document, using a move or other methods. (this would add complexity for non techy users. many editors which are mentioned are very complex with lots of keybindings)