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

Anonymous
2020-04-08T18:30:07+00:00

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.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-08-09T15:33:37+00:00

    Hi Folks,

    I think the solution for all are the same, there is a Clipboard History feature in Windows to save multiple items to the clipboard, when this setting is set to “On” there will be numerous problems like we all see posted in this blog, when you turn "Off" all issues will be gone.

    The regular Cut, Copy, Paste will still work though.

    Try it and reply if that solved your issue.

    I personally like that feature so I can have a list of items to paste later, but when I must copy a large file e.g.,1000 lines of excel data I will first turn the settings to off, then copy/paste, then turn back the Clipboard history to on. (All previous text will disappear but that is my best choice). since I start doing that, I never experienced issues anymore.

    All the best!

    Martin

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-08-09T14:46:48+00:00

    I no longer see it as an Excel problem but a general problem of clipboard availability. The Windows clipboard is shared between many programs, using it in differing ways. I guess that some tend to hog the clipboard. But on the 2nd time of asking I find that Excel grabs it anyway.

    The error message in Excel (in my Office 2019 installation) has been reworded: "We could not copy the content to the clipboard, it is in use by another application. You can still paste your content within this workbook but it will not be available within other applications."

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