How to paste a cell range automatically - Values only?

Question

I need some "live" cell data (values only), which get their data from another sheet; an arrayformula is not sufficient.

I'm thinking something that copies column A:13-down from Sheet1 (whenever it changes), and then pastes the values, beginning at row 3 of column A on Sheet2.

This answer looks like a starting point for me but lacks any mention of doing it automatically when the contents change.

Can anyone help me out?

---

EDIT: Thanks @Tom, my implementation of the script looks like this:

/**
 * A function named onEdit will be called whenever
 * a change is made to the spreadsheet.
 * 
 * @param  {object} e The edit event (not used in this case)
 */
function onEdit(e){
  var copyFromRange = 'ReportCalculations!A1:E39';
  var copyToRangeStart = 'Report!A1';
  copyValuesOnly((copyFromRange, copyToRangeStart));
}

/**
 * This function will copy the values from a given range to
 * a second range, which starts from the given cell reference
 * 
 * @param  {string} copyFromRange    Range reference eg: 
 * @param  {string} copyToRangeStart Cell reference eg:
 */
function copyValuesOnly(copyFromRange, copyToRangeStart) {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var source = ss.getRange(copyFromRange);
  source.copyTo(ss.getRange(copyToRangeStart), {contentsOnly: true});
}

At this point when the ReportCalculations sheet is edited, I'm still left with an empty Report sheet – must be missing something

My steps so far:

• Created the new script and saved it
• Tried editing the sheet (nothing)
• Then tried manually running the script from the script manager, which asked me for authorization (which I gave), then tried editing the ReportCalculations sheet again and still nothing in the Report sheet.

Answer 1

You could use an onEdit trigger for the script. That will update whenever changes are made. For example:

/**
 * A function named onEdit will be called whenever
 * a change is made to the spreadsheet.
 * 
 * @param  {object} e The edit event (not used in this case)
 */
function onEdit(e){
  var copyFromRange = 'Sheet1!A13:A'; // no row for second cell reference
  var copyToRangeStart = 'Sheet2!A3';
  copyValuesOnly(copyFromRange, copyToRangeStart);
}

/**
 * This function will copy the values from a given range to
 * a second range, which starts from the given cell reference
 * 
 * @param  {string} copyFromRange    Range reference eg: 
 * @param  {string} copyToRangeStart Cell reference eg:
 */
function copyValuesOnly(copyFromRange, copyToRangeStart) {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var source = ss.getRange(copyFromRange);
  source.copyTo(ss.getRange(copyToRangeStart), {contentsOnly: true});
}

See https://developers.google.com/apps-script/understanding_triggers for more details on triggering scripts automatically.

I can't comment yet, so will ask here: Do you need to copy to a second spreadsheet or just a second sheet within the same spreadsheet? The second case is answered above, but I can adjust if you need to copy to a separate spreadsheet?

edit: added code to fully answer the question. Thanks for the guidance Jacob.