Cut/Copy and Paste Problems in PowerPoint

Anonymous
2013-09-30T02:03:09+00:00

PowerPoint will not allow me to paste anything into a slide.  I have tried text into a text box, shapes, entire slides.  It allows me to copy or cut, but when I try to paste it is greyed out or does nothing when I use Command+V on my MacBook Pro.  I am running Office 2011 Home & Student and copy and paste work fine in Word and Xcel.  I have tried to reinstall the software and that didn.t help either... Any ideas?

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

71 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-01-20T09:03:30+00:00

    Exactly same problem here, for the past several months and without a solution. I actually bought a new MacBook Pro with MS Office 2011 pre-installed on it. I only transferred all my documents from the old MBP to the new one, no applications, no auto-migration. My assumption was that my Power Point issue would disappear, but not, it still there. So now I believe that some other application is affecting Power Point (I installed my applications from their respective websites, nothing from the old laptop).

    I haven't tried the safe-mode startup, that should eliminate old other apps effects.

    The only workaround I have is to drag and drop holding the option key. Please let us know a solution to this annoying problem.

    Thanks!

    I have done exactly the same thing, with exactly the same result.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-20T09:07:02+00:00

    PROBLEM SOLVED


    I have encountered the same problem.. that is, a weird behavior of power point text copy function. (could not copy text box- and even if i use copy command at the menu, it does not show at the clipboard). I have struggled for the whole yesterday to solve out the problem, tried every way suggested by this thread, and it did not work out. - a big frustration..

    I hit upon an idea, however, that this strange behavior is relatively a new phenomenon, starting to happen around a week ago..

    So, my final try was to delete all the recently installed applications - it was around 5-6 apps, but using an uninstallation software to complete remove the hints of those recently added softwares.. , and relanched the power point..

    Voila!!!!

    IT CAME BACK TO NORMAL,

    I am nothing to do with software development etc.. and a just a normal user.. but my guess is that one or more of recently installed softwares may have disabled a function to copy text box or similar things at Power point due to a certain conflict between power point and those newly installed softwares..

    Those deleted softwares were all related to improvement of mac performances, and a software to edit xml files etc etc..

    Hope this may help to solve the problem

    Thanks to everyone who has participated in this investigation. I’ve alerted Microsoft to the problem. It definitely seems to be related to PowerPoint on certain hardware. 

    If you are affected and have direct Microsoft support, please contact them so additional cases can be added to their case logs. If you don’t have direct support, go to the PowerPoint Help menu and choose the send Feedback option to display the feedback form. Explain the details of your hardware, os, powerpoint version and describe the problem. You might copy the URL of this thread and paste that in as a reference. Microsoft doesn’t generally reply to the feedback submissions, but if you include your contact information in your feedback at least they could contact you if they wanted to.

    Hi, is this problem resolved ? I have a MacBook Pro in the office which is having exactly the same issue and can't seems to resolve it. 

    Can you tell us the names of the applications you uninstalled?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-01-20T19:25:01+00:00

    I tried all the other things 

    Repair disk permissions

    Uninstall office

    Reinstall office

    Take out all references to com. Microsoft etc

    Nothing worked. Until - I realized 2 weeks back I had accidentally turned on dictation. When I turned it off, it was back to normal.  now I can copy and paste in PowerPoint again!

    Bizarre that this affects PowerPoint only!

    Thanks!

    I was having the same problem, but was able to solve it.  I'm posting this in hopes that it may help others.

    I turned off Dictation in my System Preferences (under Dictation/Speech) and then rebooted my Mac.  It appears to be working now.

    I have no idea why this worked (I read that the new Dictation is giving random problems, so I gave it a try on this problem).

    Hope this helps.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2015-04-08T16:12:24+00:00

    Running Office11 on a MBP late 2011. Had the same problem (command V would NOT paste) and I was able to solve it by turning off dictation. 

    Thanks for all who engaged in this dialogue

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments