"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
    2018-08-01T23:35:00+00:00

    I don't work for Microsoft (they canceled an interview at the last minute and have ignored my applications since), so I can do nothing to fix the error message.

    However, they should be able to fix the problem. It is their bug in Excel. If they cared enough to fix it.

    And I did give a workaround. Click on a different cell, press Esc, and then select and copy the cell or region you want. That's the best I can do.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-01T22:27:47+00:00

    Can anybody believe that this problem has been going on since November 2016??

    UNBELIEVABLE!! It's like Microsoft's Engineers are STUCK ON STUPID. How is it a difficult concept to grasp that the flashing of this error message should be something I can TURN OFF. Especially since this warning seems to be much to do about NOTHING. It only serves as a way to slow down productivity.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-08-01T21:53:00+00:00

    Can anybody believe that this problem has been going on since November 2016??

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-08-01T15:55:13+00:00

    From the way it behaves, the "other" program that has the clipboard locked is Excel itself.

    If you copy something and then immediately try to copy something else, the error occurs.

    Click somewhere else and press "esc" to clear the clipboard lock, and then you should be able to copy again.

    How about making the error

    A. USEFUL.. You know like identifying the "other" program

    B. Make it go away or AT LEAST a configurable option so I can decide how annoyed I want to be.

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