"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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.

Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

202 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-12-18T22:53:17+00:00

    I did purchase Office 365 and it is just as bad or worse of a problem. Although it says you can keep working, that is not true. Once the clipboard goes down, I have to save my file and reopen to continue working. This is very irritating and MS should be able to fix this problem.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-12-21T21:55:57+00:00

    I'm not sure what you guys have improved. But here I am, with Windows 10 version 1709, Office 365 and Excel version 1711. It is 21 December 2017, this year is coming to its end and new year will soon begin. I am still having the same problem.

    I cannot work like this, this is horrible! I was thinking about reinstalling the whole thing all over again, but seeing that this is still an issue, then chances are that at least someone has already done so and it did not solve their problem, so I won't be reinstalling. I use my code editor a lot for large data set manipulations, and it works every single time. So I might as well just stick to the good old plain text until this is solved, because I cannot work like this, it is driving me mad, literally.

    Use this external link to see my animated GIF:

    https://imgur.com/QrB82pf.gif

    (When will we be able to post animated GIFs here?)

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. 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.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-12-22T16:12:19+00:00

    Agreed.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments