"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
    2018-12-27T04:28:35+00:00

    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.

    Windows 7 Pro

    Excel 2016

    Best regards,

    John

    I'm using Windows 10, Office 365, and I get this error constantly, though not consistently, when working in Excel.

    While this fix may work, I like and use the "Live Preview" option a lot, and do not want to disable it. 

    I want a real fix to the problem!

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-08-01T15:53:31+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.

    What special people did you get "user feedback that this message is informative and helpful in some cases"?? My guess is NO ONE. How is this message Remotely helpful when it fails to provide ANY insight as to what "problem" it is detecting with the clipboard. HOW on Gods green earth is this USEFUL???

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-07-30T16:00:22+00:00

    Hello,

    In regards to the reasoning of the pop-up...  my question would be...

    HOW DO I FIND OUT WHAT OTHER PROGRAM HAS A LOCK ON THE CLIPBOARD SO THAT I CAN DISABLE THE LOCK? 

    This is one of the most frustrating experiences I have EVER had with Excel.  You should easily provide the end user with the option to HIDE the notification!

    Thanks

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-02-18T23:41:11+00:00

    I've just purchased a new PC based upon the fact that one of my other platforms would not update to Windows 10 v1703 months on end.  Also, I was having some clipboard issues with Excel 2010 so I decided to sign up for Office 365 Home 5 pack to start fresh. I could not believe it that a new Dell XPS 8930 running Win10 v1709 with a new installation of all the Office aps would provide so many failures cutting/pasting in Excel. Since I'm a very heavy Excel user on a daily basis I decided to try virtually all the suggestions noted on this site and others.

    Fortunately, I tried the work-around suggested above (disable live preview on the File / Options / General menu) suggested by John_8675309. 

    (John_8675309 replied on

    I suggest that Microsoft Engineering stop 'looking into it' and find out why allowing live preview trashes the supposed most up to date version of Excel.

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