How to copy cell value only

I want to copy to clipboard the text only of a cell value.

All the tutorials I find that have a title like this, don't really answer this question. What they say is to copy the CELL to clipboard (now the clipboard has a general object from which it can copy different things) then using paste special, copy the value only.

That's not quite the same thing. If the clipboard only has text in it you are able to copy that text to a whole variety of other applications that only support textual paste. I'm looking for a single click copy value text feature, else every time I want to copy a value in a formular cell to some other randon app' I am faced with a 4 or 5 step task which is rather laborious .

Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

Select the cell and then click in the formula bar above the spreadsheet. You can highlight and copy from there and paste wherever you want without the paste special process. Note, though, that if you want to paste in Excel or another spreadsheet program, you will likely have to paste it in the formula bar, rather than just selecting the cell and pasting.

handy keyboard sequence for the above:
Select cell
F2
Shift+home
ctrl+c

Sorry, I think I made a typo.

1st line should read

"I want to copy to clipboard the value text only of a cell value."

I think the rest of the text in the post is right. Your suggestions in the case of a cell with formula would mean me copying the formula text.

Sorry.

Any ideas now I've explained myself better?

Greatly appreciated, sorry again.

No, I think that muddies things up for me, particularly as to why copying and pasting isn't working for you right now. When I do a random formula, say =48*26, in a cell and just do a normal copy, I can paste it in Word and it appears as just the number 1248 without any cell box or other weird formatting. What results are you getting that you don't want to get?

Ah, I do understand (and have experienced this). We could write a quick macro to store in your personal.xls, could pin it to something like ctrl+shift+c, would that work for you?

It depends on the recipient application, Lotus Notes accepts clipboard information in quite a horrific way. I find that Alt+e, s works in quite a few apps (obeying the Unix philosophy of "do the thing of least surprise"), but not all. Nonetheless, a general solution seems apt:
You will need to create a reference to Microsoft Forms 2.0 Object Library (Tools -> References -> scroll...)

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CC

Thanks every one for your advice. Yes I think this is application specific. One person mentioned Lotus Notes, using MS Money, though I now notice that the paste appears to fail but when you navigate away from the text box, the text appears, where as when you paste from some text only copy it appears immediately you paste. In other apps there is other unusual behavour, but I guess it's all there in the clipboard interface, but its the fault of those other apps not using clipboard correctly

Thanks again, I shall look at some of your suggestions.