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

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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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202 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-12-23T15:12:40+00:00

I know there seems to be a range of different symptoms to this problem, my problem from over a year ago (still not resolved)

"... 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. " I can copy and paste out to word (which seems to be a problem for some users).

This work around from John, 6 months ago, worked for me. I don't need the preview function so it wasn't a problem.

"John_8675309 replied on

A:

I was able to work around this issue by disabling the Live Preview.

In Excel, go to File / Options / General and uncheck Enable Live Preview."

If you haven't tried this, give it a go. I'm no longer holding my breath waiting for Microsoft to actually fix it.

I do like seeing regular emails from users who remain hopeful.

PedroYogi
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Anonymous

2017-12-22T21:32:57+00:00

A G R E E. Please get this fixed.
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Anonymous

2017-12-22T16:12:19+00:00

Agreed.
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Anonymous

2017-12-22T05:07:35+00:00

I have Windows 10 & Office 365. I have uninstalled and re-installed both Windows and Office recently. It had no effect on resolving this problem. It only created a large amount of work in re-setting all of my programs.

Once I get this message in Excel, it only allows simple operations such as copying from one cell to another. Other, my complex situations such a copy/transpose are impossible. In order to complete them, I have to save and close the file, then reopen. This dramatically increases the time required to complete a project.

It can't be that hard for Microsoft to fix this bug.
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