"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
    2019-01-11T18:41:59+00:00

    Crystal Jones, it sounds like you should be working for Microsoft. For those of us who don't know how to track down the internal workings of software we may or may not have knowingly installed, much less how to disable features of those applications safely, can you provide a procedure or reference a resource for doing this?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-12-26T23:35:03+00:00

    Actually, I solved this problem some time ago by using the Office Repair utility.  Thanks.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-11-28T15:48:47+00:00

    Thank you for getting back to us. Let's try to resolve the issue by accessing the Office clipboard. Please check out this article first to show the clipboard. This way, you can see how much items are in it. Then, you can clear your clipboard's contents by following the steps on this page.

    Please keep us updated about the status of the issue.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-11-23T21:55:40+00:00

    Doffyourcap, this happens with all spreadsheets.  Including newly created sheets. 

    Other spreadsheets I open are set to enable editing with the same result.

    Thanks for responding.

    Pedro

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