"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
    2018-06-15T17:54:00+00:00

    Thanks for the advice, but it still has the error message

    I've noticed that when pasting using ctrl+x / ctrl+v it's fine.

    Only pops the error message if dragging.  The live preview suggestion did not have any effect.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-12T23:17:50+00:00

    I get this message EVERY time I do a copy/paste in any Excel spreadsheet. And I open a number of spreadsheets during the day. Sometimes the same ones during the day and still get the message.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-06-12T23:14:58+00:00

    Did this months ago & it did/has not helped.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-06-12T21:51:13+00:00

    To All,

    Here is a mitigation that was noted by someone else some time ago and it did not solve my problem but it did limit it to only the first time I opened an Excel file and performed a Copy Paste sequence. Additionally, if you keep any Excel file open for the entire day/work period the stupid notice is ever displayed again for that time frame. I've listed the menu path to find the option below:

    File Tab

    Options

    General

    Uncheck: "Enable Live Preview"

    Hope that helps.

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