Selecting Columns and Rows in HTML Tables with Firefox

by steven  []  -  19 replies
Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 Col 4
Row A 1A 2A 3A 4A
Row B 1B 2B 3B 4B
Row C 1C 2C 3C 4C
Row D 1D 2D 3D 4D

A random tip, because I find it so handy on rare occasions:

You can select columns, rows, or blocks of cells in HTML tables in Firefox (or any Gecko-powered browser) by holding down “Control” and selecting with the mouse. Handy for copy+pasting data from tables in websites.

Try it out in the table to the right.

Replies to Steven Garrity’s post: Selecting Columns and Rows in HTML Tables with Firefox
Stefan Hayden []
alt255@gmail.com
http://www.stefanhayden.com/blog/
haha! How can you post that with out an example table so us lazy people can test it out with out thinking. Great tip, thanks.
Steven Garrity []
steven@actsofvolition.com
Good idea Stefan - updated.
Stefan Hayden []
alt255@gmail.com
http://www.stefanhayden.com/blog/
doh. now if I only looked to the right... in my defence Bloglines didn't seem to also have the table. now if you'll excuse me I have a lot of foot to take out of my mouth.
Minh Nguyễn []
http://mxn.f2o.org/
Yes, but it’d be nice if Excel could handle the data from selected cells in Firefox. For me the entire table ends up in Excel as one super-long cell with lots of tabs in it…
Adam Bramwell []
http://www.createconsume.com
And also useful for planning out your evening's TV viewing by marking out your online program guide..
Rob L. []
http://freelantz.ca
Cool. Thanks.
dm []
Command key for those of us on a Mac.
Patrick Fitzgerald []
http://www.barelyfitz.com/
Great tip, thanks!
Eklund []
Thank you very much for this tip! I've needed this feature a lot of times, but just assumed that it wasn't implemented.
Willem []
dhromed@gmail.com
http://pliv.com/
Genius!
Maria loves pictures []
love@sunday.so
http://gimps.de
Very good tip. Thank you for sharing it with me.
Now I can browse the web even faster with firefox.
Rob F []
Nice trick! Can anybody explain the behaviour of holding shift and control at the same time? It lets you pick unusual shapes, but I can't predict it.
Willem []
dhromed@gmail.com
http://pliv.com/
>It lets you pick unusual shapes, but I can't predict it.

Hold the keys, then drag up/down a little bit. That's Column Mode, and you can them drag left+right for full column select.

Hold the keys, then drag left/right a little bit. That's Row Mode, and you can them drag up/down for full row select.

Crazy stuff.

Gorik []
httphttp://free-chat-room.k7.pl
please welcome
dryjer []
very sorry
http://www.phentermune.com
http://www.megspace.com/computers/alesha/index.html
http://wiki.gnumed.de/bin/viewfile/Main/DonVargus?rev=1;filename=index.html
http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/212608/index.html
http://www.blog-gratuit.com/jenniferlopez
http://smart.45.kg/hren/index.html
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/10/21/305741/index.html
http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/News-events/posts/4133.html
http://www.appli.se/rebecca/anyboard/myboard/posts/173.html
http://www.zayfa.com/replicarolex/8436/Replica+Rolex+Watch+buy+cheap+replica+rolex.html
http://urlcutter.com/?24699
http://wapurl.co.uk/?Y3BDHTI
http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/213547/index.html
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/10/22/308809/index.html
tukr []
very sorry phentermune alesha DonVargus 212608 jenniferlopez hren 305741 4133 173 replica rolex 24699 Y3BDHTI 213547 308809
Alex []
http://www.contractwebdevelopment.com
I found this thread looking for the option of selecting the data in actual tabular format (HTML copy vs text copy), so as Minh pointed out, data can be parsed cell-wise in Excel. Anyone know of a way to do this?

Alex
----------
Contract Web Development

Frank []
To paste in Excel and preserve the tabular format, Edit -> Paste Special -> Text (or Unicode Text if required) will do the trick.
Riddle []
riddlu@gmail.com
http://riddle.jogger.pl
I've been using this for ages. :) Usually to check if page I'm browsing is created on tables. ;)