Clipboard problem in Excel 2016

Anonymous
2016-04-16T23:39:19+00:00

I am running Excel 2016 on a Windows 10 Machine.

When I copy a cell (or cut a cell, or move a cell) I get one of two error messages:

"Cannot open the Clipboard"

"We couldn't free up space on the Clipboard.  Another program might be using it right now." 

I am then able to successfully paste what Excel told me it could not copy.  To restate for clarity...Excel throws error messages, but I am able to successfully copy and paste.

The problem is that it throws the error messages every single time I try and copy or cut or whatever.

Things I have tried:

I've ensured all other programs are not running (or using the clip board)

I've cleared the %temp% folder

I've cleared the Clipboard within Excel

Word does not have this problem...

Please help.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-02-28T16:18:02+00:00

Hello,

I have an update on this error dialog: “There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste your content within this workbook."

When Excel shows this dialog after a copy (CTRL+C) action, it means that another app has a lock on the system clipboard.  In this situation you can still paste within Excel.  However you cannot paste to another app like Word or Outlook which uses the clipboard.

Last year we made some improvements to Office365 users so that this error message only shows once per Excel instance.  This is based on customer feedback - the design change prevents it popping up multiple successive times when the clipboard is locked.  We have also considered never showing the error dialog, but there was user feedback that this message is informative and helpful in some cases. 

We hope this helps shed some light on this error message.  For any design suggestions or new ideas on improving the Excel copy-paste experience, please post to Excel UserVoice.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-09-22T19:34:21+00:00

    I found that if I close Outlook, the problem goes away.  When I open Outlook, the problem returns.  There must be a setting in Outlook that locks the clipboard.  Possibly in correlation with GPG encryption.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-16T09:40:04+00:00

    Thank you for your answer Mike. However, that annoying and pointless dialog still keeps popping up in September 2017. I'm using the latest version of Office 365 on Win10 x64. Is there any chance that Microsoft will finally wake up and fix that issue/bug?

    Thank you,

    Jiri

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-09-02T16:02:40+00:00

    Great that you got it to work for you, agree about your M'Soft comment!!

    Unfortunately, I don't have Outlook so I'll have to look for something else for my problem.

    m

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-09-01T17:34:11+00:00

    I have had the same Excel Clipboard errors as well.  Did some research and based on the blogs and forums I was reading the issue is a compatibility or communication issue between two programs on your computer.  The forums suggested uninstalling or turning off potential programs that are running at the same time.

    I started turning off and on the other programs that I had running on my computer.

    To my surprise the problem program that I am having issues with while using Microsoft Excel is none other than Microsoft Outlook. Yep, sure enough.  I closed Microsoft office and my "There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste your content within this workbook." and "We couldn't free up space on the Clipboard. Another program might be using it right now." problems went away.

    I did not uninstall Outlook. I simply closed the program down. So far my Excel clipboard problems have not come back.

    You would think that someone at Microsoft would be smart enough to make sure that two highly used Microsoft programs would not cause operating errors with one another when both programs are being used at the same time.

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