CTRL+V (paste) not working in Excel (sometimes)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Keith G Hicks
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Keith G Hicks

I was running Office 2003 under Win2kPro for years. I would frequently copy
some text from different applications (CTRL+C), open up a new blank Excel
workbook and CTRL+V the contents of the clipboard into the sheet. Never
failed. Worked every time. I just recently rebuilt my machine and loaded up
XP pro SP 3. Still using Office 2003. Now when I try the same process, when
I get to the Excel sheet CTRL+V does nothing. In fact the "paste" option in
the Edit menu is grayed out. I can copy into blank new Word docs, notepad
docs, etc but not Excel. This is beyond annoying. If I open a blank new
Excel sheeet first and then do CTRL+C in the other app and go back to Excel
to do the paste it works fine. This has nothing to do wiht the office
clipboard as far as I know because it's not got anything to do wiht copying
between office docs. I might just have some rows of text in a web page I
want to copy to an Excel sheet. Like I said, it works fine with Word and
other text editors. Just not Excel. Any ideas? I'm fully updated on my
office and windows installations.

Thanks,

Keith
 
Just a guess--and it doesn't explain why the same procedure worked in your
previous configuration.

Almost all macros (that do anything) will destroy the clipboard contents.

Maybe you have an auto_open/workbook_open procedure that runs in your
personal.xl* (or other addins in tools|addins).

If you want to test, try copying something (with excel closed).
Then open excel in safe mode:
Windows start button|Run
type:
excel /safe
and hit enter

Then try the Edit|paste.

Opening in safe mode will stop macros from running.
 
I'm thinking it could be an XP SP3 issue. Most things seem to point to that
but I'm not sure.
 
I was running Office 2003 under Win2kPro for years. I would frequently copy
some text from different applications (CTRL+C), open up a new blank Excel
workbook and CTRL+V the contents of the clipboard into the sheet. Never
failed. Worked every time. I just recently rebuilt my machine and loaded up
XP pro SP 3. Still using Office 2003. Now when I try the same process, when
I get to the Excel sheet CTRL+V does nothing. In fact the "paste" option in
the Edit menu is grayed out. I can copy into blank new Word docs, notepad
docs, etc but not Excel. This is beyond annoying. If I open a blank new
Excel sheeet first and then do CTRL+C in the other app and go back to Excel
to do the paste it works fine. This has nothing to do wiht the office
clipboard as far as I know because it's not got anything to do wiht copying
between office docs. I might just have some rows of text in a web page I
want to copy to an Excel sheet. Like I said, it works fine with Word and
other text editors. Just not Excel. Any ideas? I'm fully updated on my
office and windows installations.

Thanks,

Keith
Click to expand...

I hope you find an answer. I've been having the same problem with Excel 2007 /
Windows XP SP3.

But I don't recall when the problem started -- I thought it was with Office
2007 and pre-dated XP SP3, but I could be wrong.

Opening Excel first works, but is not as satisfactory as the previous
functionality.
--ron
 
This is my first XP installation on any of my computers. I installed SP3
before installing any other software so I never had a chance to test if it
worked on SP2. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one out there with this
problem. Hopefully MS will get wind of this and fix it soon. It's a minor
thing but quite inconvenient.
 
Ron's problem is with Excel 2007 and Win XP with SP3

I have updated to SP3 on Win XP Pro and using Excel 2003(with all Office
updates), cannot replicate your CTRL + V problem.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
 
Ron's problem is with Excel 2007 and Win XP with SP3

I have updated to SP3 on Win XP Pro and using Excel 2003(with all Office
updates), cannot replicate your CTRL + V problem.
Click to expand...

And I have the same problem on two different computers -- both XP Pro SP3 and
Office 2007 with all updates.
--ron
 
I first noticed the problem after moving to Excel 2007 from Excel 2002 (aka
Excel XP?). And, yes, it's highly annoying.
 
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