Can I import a rectangle from one org-table into another org-table?

Question

I have an org document with two different-sized tables table1 and table2.

#+TBLNAME: table1
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
|   |   | x | x | x | x | x |
|   |   | x | x | x | x | x |
|   |   | x | x | x | x | x |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
#+TBLFM: @2$3..@4$7=x

#+TBLNAME: table2
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   | y | y | y | y | y |   |
|   |   |   |   | y | y | y | y | y |   |
|   |   |   |   | y | y | y | y | y |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
#+TBLFM: @6$5..@8$9=y

The region in table1 marked with x's and the region in table2 marked with y's are both arrays with three rows and four columns. I want to import the information in the indicated region of table2 into the indicated region of table1.

Reading through the org documentation it appears that something like

#+TBLFM: @2$3..@4$7='(identity remote(table2, <STUFF>))

might work, but I can't figure out what <STUFF> should be. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Here you go. The key was to recombine the rows back (for some reason when Org copies a rectangle area it flattens it).

#+TBLNAME: table1
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   | a | a | a | a | a |
|   |   | b | b | b | b | b |
|   |   | c | c | c | c | c |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
#+TBLFM: @3$3..@5$7=arrange(remote(table2, @6$5..@8$9), 5)_(@# - 2)_($# - 2)

#+TBLNAME: table2
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   | a | a | a | a | a |   |
|   |   |   |   | b | b | b | b | b |   |
|   |   |   |   | c | c | c | c | c |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
#+TBLFM: @6$5..@6$9=a::@7$5..@7$9=b::@8$5..@8$9=c

Answer 2

To supplement wvxvw's answer, you can also do this interactively by copying with org-table-copy-region and pasting with org-paste-rectangle. I bind those two like this:

;; table copy paste (C-c M-w is bound to `org-copy' by default)
(org-defkey org-mode-map (kbd "C-c M-w") 'org-table-copy-region)
(org-defkey org-mode-map (kbd "C-c M-y") 'org-table-paste-rectangle)