"there's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste this content within this workbook"

Anonymous
2016-11-17T14:55:36+00:00

Perhaps someone could direct to a discussion where this has been tackled, but I keep getting this error "there's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still past this content within this workbook " with simple cut/copy and paste actions in Excel.  The error box pops up and an alert sounds (which is super annoying) after every paste.  I can still perform the actions however my selection is not highlighted and I can't be sure that I have selected the correct information until I do a paste in the same, or another, worksheet. I have Excel 2016 in Office 365 on a machine running Windows 10.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-02-28T16:18:43+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
    2017-12-18T22:36:25+00:00

    Me too.  Like you my issue occurs when ONLY Excel is open - and I'm dragging data from one cell to another.  Nothing else is open, not Word, nothing.  Not even another Excel file.

    Hopefully Microsoft is reading this - I'm using Office 2010 and Office 2016.  This only started showing up a month or so ago - never had this issue before.

    No, I'm not going to go out and purchase Office 365.  This old retired fart doesn't find that to be cost effective.  What I have works fine for me, well except for a slight bug.

    Being a royal pain is an understatement.  Let's hope MS can update WINDOWS 10 (this issue doesn't happen in Windows 7) to fix the clipboard.  Whatever was programmed in the last update didn't work  -- > notice the windows.old directory in there?  Must have been one heck of an update, with a bug in it.

    What cracks me up is the question underneath:  "Is the information helpful?"  Not only no, but .... no!

    I just stand by ready to press the enter key, alot.  :-)

    Best Regards,

    Chris

    Oh, I did disable live preview, no dice.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-12-18T21:55:40+00:00

    This may be one of those features some like, but I find it to a be a pain.  

    I'm in Office 365 Excel, and the message appears often, even when just moving contents of one cell to another.

    I often do copy and paste between Word and Excel, so if there is a way to avoid this message, I'd sure like to know about it.

    Thanks,

    Dave O.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-12-14T22:24:27+00:00

    I have auto update enabled on my PC, so Windows and all my MS apps (like Office) are supposed to be updated automatically whenever they are made available.

    Last night my PC received an update. I don't know if only my Widows 10 was updated or whether there was and update for Office as well - I have not checked my updates log yet.

    Whatever was updated did NOT fix my problem with the clip-board in Excel.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-12-14T15:07:59+00:00

    I updated Office and restarted computer, which led to auto-update.

    Fixed.

    Excel 2016

    Windows 10

    Doing this did not work for me on any of the computers I use @ home.

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