Excel 2010 Insert Copied Cells doesn't work between Workbooks

Question

I'm new to using Excel 2010, but not Excel in general, and have noticed an oddity.

When I copy out of one Workbook into another I do not get the option to Insert Copied Cells. When I try it just adds one cell or one line depending on if I've highlighted one cell or one row. I'm usually copying out of a Worksheet and into an identically formated one (just in a differnt Workbook).

Anyone else with this problem or with a solution?

I am not sure I'm willing to alter my user behavior and copy and insert enough cells to then paste in the data- too many steps.

Answer 1

I can open two workbooks in Excel 2010 and either copy whole rows or just a range of cells, copy and then in the other workbook I can "Insert copied cells". If I do this with a cell range, I get promtoed to move existing cells down or right to get out of the way.

So this does not reproduce your problem.

However, if I open a workbook from an email attachment without bothering to save it locally first, and copy cells from there I can't insert them in another workbook.

Except... if you notice the information bar in Excel for the attachment workbook it says "this file originated as an e-mail attachment and might be unsafe". There is a big button to "enable editing". If I click this, I can now copy data from here and insert into the other workbooks as before.

Does this work for you?

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Adam Vero MCT, MMI, MBMSS:CRM 4, MCSA:Messaging http://www.meteorit.co.uk

Answer 2

Make sure that you open the two workbooks in the same instance of Excel. If you open the workbooks in two separate instances of Excel, many options, such as Insert Copied Cells, are not available.

Answer 3

I had the same issue, unlocking the file via Properties didn't help.

However, I noticed that filters were applied to the file I was trying to copy from.

Removing filters (Home > Sort & Filter > uncheck "Filter") fixed the issue.

Answer 4

Seems like there is more than one issue going on here.  When you have two excel programs opened you can not copy and paste from one to the other.  Try using the File, Open command through excel instead of opening the second workbook through windows explorer.  This should enable you to copy from one excel file to the other.

Answer 5

I'm doing that.

 I open all the timesheets (Workbook 1) and then my YTD (Workbook 2). Highlight and copy the new data from WorkBook1, Worksheet1 navigate to the WorkBook2, Worksheetx, right click where I want the new data to go and no option to Insert Copied Cells appears. Insert does but only to insert a single cell or row.

After I've input all the new data I close Workbook2, then start opening each client Workbook (yes, I know I should either be using Access or SQL for this but they are still in the Development process.). After more copy and pasting I close them all.