The issue comes when you copy outside of Mathematica. For example, if you copy a column of numbers from a spreadsheet and then evaluate Paste[], then Mathematica multiplies those numbers together, rather than just displaying them as a string with tabs.
What spreadsheet software do you use? When I copy a column of numbers from Excel 2003 and after that evaluate Paste[]
, it inserts numbers concatenated together with all tabs and empty cells removed:
1) What I copy from Excel 2003:
![screenshot 1](https://community.wolfram.com//c/portal/getImageAttachment?filename=5763%D0%91%D1%83%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B001.png&userId=88857)
2) What appears in Mathematica after evaluating Paste[]
:
![screenshot 2](https://community.wolfram.com//c/portal/getImageAttachment?filename=2735%D0%91%D1%83%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B001.png&userId=88857)
When copying from Notepad, I get no such issue.