“The Clipboard cannot be emptied. Another program might be using the Clipboard” Oct 2012 Office 2010 Excel.

And all they need to do to sort this out, ALL they need to do... is disable the dialog.

I agree. Excel is the culprit all through this thread. Closing other apps is just a workround.

With nothing in the clipboard all is well. Do first select, drag and place OK. Subsequent ones are OK but you get the stupid error popup.

I dont think Microsoft respond to custoner complaints (i.e. do customer service) anymore. Be nice to be proven wrong though.

Ed

Turn off the Office Clipboard and clear its contents and check.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/copy-and-paste-multiple-items-by-using-the-office-clipboard-HA010163602.aspx

Take a look at this as well.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-excel/the-clipboard-cannot-be-emptied-in-excel/4b367423-6c7b-4fc7-9203-23c866255d60

This also occurs if you have file explorer open and in preview mode. 

I faced this issue and found that the logging feature enabled with one of the ftp clients (winscp) have caused the error. I have turned off the logging feature and still faced this issue, once I terminated that program, the issue resolved.

The responses concerning this issue have continuously pointed towards other programs needing to be closed to halt this issue.  I have tried closing numerous programs and may stop it for a while but then have the problem come back after a while.

Due to the fact that this is a constant issue with Excel; closing numerous other programs is not the solution.  This is a temporary fix to a permanent issue.

Microsoft,  please tell us what we can do within Excel to stop this problem.  Excel is an enterprise class product and should not have issues that would normally be sound in Beta products.

Deron Braun

Support Engineer

Tech Data Corporation

I have been able to eliminate the Excel clipboard error issue by opening up a blank document in Word and cutting (right click) and pasting a cell from Excel into the blank Word document. After that, Excell works fine, and it's goodbye to the annoying "Clipboard cannot be emptied..." popup error. You will also notice that when you now do a drag and drop in Excel, it happens instantaneously (as expected). You can close Word after doing the cut and past workaround, and everything will still be fine with Excel. However you will have to go through this procedure every time your reboot your PC and open Excel again.

I hope other Excel users can replicate this workaround and maybe MS will pick up on it.

Cheers,

Tony

I have been able to eliminate the Excel clipboard error issue by opening up a blank document in Word and cutting (right click) and pasting a cell from Excel into the blank Word document. After that, Excell works fine, and it's goodbye to the annoying "Clipboard cannot be emptied..." popup error. You will also notice that when you now do a drag and drop in Excel, it happens instantaneously (as expected). You can close Word after doing the cut and past workaround, and everything will still be fine with Excel. However you will have to go through this procedure every time your reboot your PC and open Excel again.

I hope other Excel users can replicate this workaround and maybe MS will pick up on it

I don't mean to belittle your efforts, but I'm afraid that's nonsensical. And I mean that in the literal sense, not the put-down sense. Also, although I tried it on the off chance... it doesn't work. I followed your instructions, then did a few things that I knew would randomly (that being the key word) trigger the error and sure enough, within 5 minutes I had it back.

Think about it for a minute, and I mean that expression in all seriousness; why would pasting something from Excel into Word when you start Excel have any effect on clipboard operations that might occur 2, 3, 4 hours later maybe?

The one, the ONLY thing that Microsoft needs to pick up on is to make this accursed, pointless, useless dialog killable. "Do not show this again. Ever. And that goes for most of the pointless, irritating dialogs that MS has made since Vista". I don't even care if it takes (yet another) Registry hack. The problem with this one is that it's so random and so pervasive and so disruptive AND so unkillable that it's just another nail that MS is hammering into its own coffin.

Note the absence of any MS representatives in here acknowledging the problem, much less promising a solution. When, not if, WHEN Google get serious about transforming Google Sheets into something more than the toys that they are now, what will MS have left? Dialogs that irritate he living bejeezes out of people for versions on end with no attempt to fix the problems.