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I am using the Microsoft Office 365 Business desktop app, and as of this posting am running Windows 10 version 1903 (OS Build 18362.720) on this particular laptop. This problem has been witnessed across multiple computers, Windows 10 versions, Microsoft accounts, all while using the Office 365 app.
I track a lot of data in Excel and often copy cells from it and paste them into online forms, ETC. Within the last few weeks I have started getting a pop up when I try to copy a cell that says "There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste this content within this workbook."
It does not seem to matter if the file is stored locally or not.
I have found that if I continue to press Ctrl+v 2 to 4 more times it usually at some point copies the data as it should, without the pop up, and allows me to paste it wherever I want.
I searched for an answer to what is going on and or if there is a solution, and found that people have been periodically having this problem for years, and but could not find a solution that worked despite a post on this site having over 20 pages of replies and over 1500 reports of having the same problem, before comments were locked due to the thread age.
I have tried repairing the app without success. I have tried updating Office, which did do an update but did not solve the problem. I've restarted the computer and Excel many times.
This is making use of Excel inefficient and annoying. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before I and others I've spoken with that are experiencing the same thing, are not able to paste outside of the workbook at all. As is, I may as well just type everything again instead of bothering with the broken copy/paste feature.
A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
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.
This is the solution that ended up working for me. (So far so good, anyway)
I too am annoyed that Microsoft has not fixed this problem.
However I recommend you try Ron.roads's solution, it worked for me (so far so good, anyway)
Open Excel > File > Options > General>under Linkedln Features un-check "Enable Linkedln features in my Office applications"
It sounds like you may have a different issue going on than me though--for me it was just the infernal dialogue box and subsequently being able to paste only within the worksheet. The cursor thing, etc were not happening to me. But still maybe worth a try, since it's safe to assume you are probably not using these "LinkedIn features" anyway. (I bet there are like 8 people total on this planet using that)
I did not have this enabled and still have the problem.
My Excel even becomes unstable when this bug happens. I cannot select cells and If I go to File menu the whole screen is empty of text!!!
Then I should restart excel which works once or twice with the copy-pastes and then I am again at it.
I did not have this enabled and still have the problem.
My Excel even becomes unstable when this bug happens. I cannot select cells and If I go to File menu the whole screen is empty of text!!!
Then I should restart excel which works once or twice with the copy-pastes and then I am again at it.
I agree with the numerous comments suggesting Microsoft should have resolved this years ago!
I actually did post on this same subject several years ago when I was still using a purchased copy of Excel 2010. Although, recently I started using Microsoft 365 and that too worked on my older PCs. Then I purchased a new Dell XPS 8940 and started from scratch with all the software including a copy of Microsoft 365 (v16.0.13901.20400). When I started using Excel again I discovered that the "There's a problem with the clipboard, but you can still paste your content within this workbook" was back! Unfortunately, as many have posted, in this version it was even worse than it was 11 years ago with the 2010 version of Excel and, oh by the way, it was virtually impossible to even Paste within the same sheet.
The solution noted below is how I was able to eliminate the message entirely. I hope this resolves your issues as well!
| Disabling the "Enable Live Preview" box, circled below, totally resolved this issue for me again!!! |
|---|
If you're still monitoring this thread, can you try dragging a range of cells to another part of the worksheet? I'm still getting the error when I do that. Probably not the biggest of issues, but it's still there which is annoying.
And by dragging, I mean highlighting a range of cells and clicking the border to drag the cells to another area. I'm sure you understood, just wanting to make sure we're on the same page :)