How do I find a hidden table in Numbers on macOS Sequoia 15.3.2?

Aha! There's your problem:

> position:{1530, -9245}

The table is positioned some 9,245 pixels off-screen. No clue how it got there, nor why Numbers won't scroll to bring it in view.

The good thing is that it's easily fixable with just an edit to the previous script:

tell application "Numbers"
	tell document 1 to tell sheet "Sheet 1" to tell table "Table 2"
		set position to {100,100}
	end tell
end tell

As for your obfuscation, the document id is irrelevant and useless to anyone else, so there's no need to mask that. The table name should just be "Table 2", but either way this script should match the actual table name in your sheet. If there's no match then the script will just throw an error. Worst case, if the name is wrong, it'll move some other table on the sheet.

That was an odd and interesting problem. I suppose not scrolling over to the table like it should is a bug.

Hard to say what happened to get it so far off the page. Something laying on the keyboard pressing Shift and and an arrow key? Or somehow you accidentally clicked on on the position field instead of a cell and started typing?

I tried it and saw that it does have the effect you posted. In my quick test, though, I found that if I selected the table using the Sheet tab, all the info in the sidebar is about that table (including its position) even though it the table is out of sight. I was able to correct it there without using the script.

Does your document have only one sheet?

The table in question could be on any sheet in the document.

For better or worse, if the table has a unique name, then Numbers shows references to the table by name only, omitting the sheet name, which may make tracking down the table harder.

You might try adding another table to your main sheet with the same name as the rogue table. As soon as two tables have the same name, Numbers will include the Sheet Name in the cell references, i.e.:

Table 1::A1 <= Cell A1 on the only table called 'Table 1' anywhere in the document.

Sheet 2::Table 1::A1 <= There are two tables called 'Table 1' in the document, use the one on Sheet 2

Right click on the Sheet tab (or click its disclosure triangle). The table should be in its list of tables. Click on the table name and it will take you directly to that table and the table will be selected. With the table selected, click on the Arrange tab in the sidebar and see where it is on the sheet. Set the position of the table to some positive X,Y close to 0,0 by either dragging it or typing in some position coordinates.

Hmm. Use the Script Editor app to run the script below then post the results. Maybe something in the table's properties will give a clue or provide a possible solution. Change the name of the sheet and table to yours then run it. Capitalization matters, the names must be exactly the same as in your document.

tell application "Numbers"
	tell document 1 to tell sheet "Sheet 1" to tell table "Table 2"
		return properties
	end tell
end tell

Just a wild guess.

I was able to make a table completely disappear by setting all the borders to same color as the sheet background and all the text to that color too.

I did that by activating the right pane with View > Inspector > Format and going to the 'Border' section under the Cell tab and setting them to 'None', then going to the 'Text' tab and setting the text color to match the background. I also unchecked 'Title' under 'Table Options' in the 'Table' tab.

If you happen to click directly on the hidden table (or choose it from the dropdown in the sheet name "tab") then you will see column letters and row numbers but nothing else. Possibly easy to miss.

To reveal the hidden table, I clicked on the canvas of the sheet (i.e., not in any table) and changed the background color in the right pane. I could then see the text in the table.

Perhaps you tried to "hide" a table in that manner and forgot?

The only other thing I can think of is that if the document had its origin in Excel then there may be strange behavior as a result of that.

And, of course, I assume you have restarted your Mac. That can clear up a surprisingly wide range of strange behaviors.

SG

It is not the name of the document. Leave that piece alone. Run the script with only your problem Numbers document open, just to make it less complicated.

That gives a reasonably effective way to hide a table from the casual user.

Click in it, go to Format > Arrange tab and set the position negative.

SG