"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
    2017-06-04T07:13:28+00:00

    What I want to know is why Office insists on putting locks on absolutely everything -- files, the clipboard... It's not 1995 anymore. Can we do IPC correctly, please?

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-04-17T22:53:19+00:00

    Exactly!  My problem also.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-03-15T20:34:47+00:00

    I am now having this problem. It's odd, because Excel has been working fine for me until now, without any problems.

    I have also tried the solutions suggested in this thread (including a reinstall) and the problem remains. I do however still have Office 2010 installed on my PC and using Excel 2010 works fine, without this error. As soon as I fire up the new version however, I get the message (and to make things worse, the spreadsheet 'freezes').

    So, it's clearly not another App 'locking' the clipboard, else cut/copy paste wouldn't work in the 2010 version. I'll stick to the old version for now, but it would be nice to know what's happened.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-03-09T15:06:00+00:00

    The suggestions that were made were to run the OffCAT repair utility.  I installed it sometime back and have run it several times.  It says there are no problems.  Occaisionally it tells me there is an update, so I update.  When I re-run it says no problems.  Then the issue comes back.  It has been doing this for months.  OCAT does not fix it.  Updates don't fix it.  Repair doesn't fix it.  Did I miss the solution?

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