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

Just to let you all know I have tried to recreate the problem with Excel 2010 and Win 10, and also Excel 2010 and Win XP, but failed. I used the same spreadsheet saved as .xls, which used to give consistent clipboard use errors when dragging/pasting cells, but no longer.

Whether this remains true long term is open to question at this point in time. All I can say is Office automatc updates are applied.

Whether MS have at some time released a fix is anyones guess. The absence of any MS reply to this issue means we are on our own.

Ed

That sounds hopeful if you're not experiencing the same in Win 10. In the meantime my own personal workaround in Win 7 is just to click "Ok" to close the warning, press the Esc key to clear the "marching ants" from my selection, then I can copy and paste again... for a short while. Sometimes it works without having to press the Esc key - but not always, so I've just got used to pressing it anyway, for good measure.

I like the way they say "Another program might be using the clipboard", like they just threw that warning in to cover up a bug they couldn't fix.

Just to let you all know I have tried to recreate the problem with Excel 2010 and Win 10, and also Excel 2010 and Win XP, but failed. I used the same spreadsheet saved as .xls, which used to give consistent clipboard use errors when dragging/pasting cells, but no longer.

Whether this remains true long term is open to question at this point in time. All I can say is Office automatc updates are applied.

Whether MS have at some time released a fix is anyones guess. The absence of any MS reply to this issue means we are on our own.

Ed

Thanks for your feedback AKMC 117. I'm sorry it didn't work for you. Did you open Excel before or after Word?

BTW I'm running Office Home & Student 2013 on a new PC with Windows 8.1 OS.

I'm just your average MS Office user, so I have no idea why what I've done works (for me), but it works. I've been happily dragging and dropping cells all day in Excel without being annoyed by that pesky clipboard error dialog.

Sure, I will have to do the workaround every time I reboot, but at least it's better than closing other programs that may, or may not, be the cause of the issue.

Perhaps you could tell me what sort of "things" you did to get the error happening after you tried my workaround. Thanks,

The order made no difference. But it still comes back to what I was saying earlier; think about the mechanics behind this. Excel will spit that error when for whatever reason it thinks that another application has a lock on the clipboard. Copying a value into Word at the very start of your session is not going to affect what other applications (Skype, to cite the most commonly referred to application but there are plenty of others as this thread shows) do with the clipboard when someone has been working away for a few hours. At that point this kind of solution becomes less of a reliance on system engineering and more of a reliance on a combination of magic and wishful thinking. Given the (seemingly) random nature of the error as Ed alluded to in his post there will be times when it will stop happening for extended periods but it's just as likely to be coincidence as change. (Though in Ed's case it may be, may be, the upgrade to Windows 10 if Microsoft has made some changes to the way the Clipboard is accessed.)

I didn't specify the "things" because most of the people reading this thread would not be able to replicate them. The most common (not only, but most common) time that I encounter the error message at this particular moment (for as I said, apparent randomness is one of the features of this "feature") is when I use a third party add-in (which most people will never have heard off or be able to afford the licence fees for) which connects to an external data source and brings down data from that source into Excel. There will be times when I won't see it for weeks (more precisely I won't see it from that add-in, though I still periodically see it in regular Excel copy and paste operations for no apparent reason) but at the moment I don't have to do it too many times before I'll get it.

And no, the problem isn't with the add-in because:

(a) It's an Excel dialog, as at least two of us have been saying since the day dot Excel needs to be fixed; and

(b) It still happens seemingly randomly with other Excel actions.

This used to be a major gripe of mine. The only steps being offered being work-rounds, not MS solving the underlying problem.

Having said that, I have not encountered the stupid warning of late, though I regularly drag cells about.

The only thing I have done is upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10. I suspect that is more of a coincidence and not the solution. Regardless, Excel being part of Office an enterprise product, should not continue to be plagued by such a long running issue, regardless of version of Windows OS. 

Ed

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.

Thanks for your feedback AKMC 117. I'm sorry it didn't work for you. Did you open Excel before or after Word?

BTW I'm running Office Home & Student 2013 on a new PC with Windows 8.1 OS.

I'm just your average MS Office user, so I have no idea why what I've done works (for me), but it works. I've been happily dragging and dropping cells all day in Excel without being annoyed by that pesky clipboard error dialog.

Sure, I will have to do the workaround every time I reboot, but at least it's better than closing other programs that may, or may not, be the cause of the issue.

Perhaps you could tell me what sort of "things" you did to get the error happening after you tried my workaround. Thanks,

Tony