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Excel cells will not deselect after copying and pasting

Anonymous
2017-06-28T14:57:08+00:00

I have 2016 Excel (via Office 365) and it recently started doing this.  After copying and pasting a cell (or cells) the original cell that I copied remains selected (with the dotted lines around it).  The only way it will deselect is when I 1)close and reopen the workbook or 2) copy and paste another cell...in which case it does the same thing to the new cell that I copied.

It does NOT do this when I cut and paste - only copy and paste.

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.  I have been unable to find another user having this problem online or on this forum.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-07-04T08:59:54+00:00

    Hi All,

    As a workaround, we can press ESC to deselect the cell. For your requirement to turn this feature off directly, we suggest you vote this UserVoice: 

    I want to deselect the cell which I copied from after pasting. At the moment, to deselect the cell I copied from, I have to hit Esc button.

    This is the best way to make our products and services better for you and others.

    Thanks,

    Rena

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-06-30T18:37:03+00:00

    It's part of the May 2017update which keeps the copied item active in the clipboard even if you do things that would normally clear it, like typing in a cell, applying formatting, etc.

    Pressing ESC will clear the marquee/dancing ants.

    What a terrible change! I can see why they did it: trying to have "Persistent Clipboard" like the other office programs so you can keep items in the clipboard without having to copy them again and again. This becomes a pain in excel, however, since more often than not you want to just copy and paste the range once and move on. Having to constantly clear the copy range with esc key will be way more of a pain to most heavy excel users like myself. They should at least give us the option to turn this feature on or off.

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  2. triptotokyo-5840 36,681 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-06-30T18:34:31+00:00

    It's part of the May 2017update which keeps the copied item active in the clipboard even if you do things that would normally clear it, like typing in a cell, applying formatting, etc.

    Pressing ESC will clear the marquee/dancing ants.

    . . . so now I have do to an extra keystroke (ESC) that I never had to do before! that's a nuisance.

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  3. Vijay A. Verma 104.8K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-06-28T15:03:30+00:00

    After copying, paste with Enter.

    Or after copy & paste, press Esc or double click somewhere.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-30T00:23:37+00:00

    Definitely seems like a bug.  Just started happening for me also in the past day.  Double clicking another cell does not deselect the copied cells.  Selecting another cell first and then hitting Enter also will NOT deselect the cells.  Only hitting Enter immediately after pasting will clear the cells.  Something is not right and is different about how this normally works in Excel.

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