excel clipboard blocks windwos clipboard

Question

Since a few days the behavior of the excel clipboard has changed:

I often copy data from an excel cell, to paste to (the search window of) our internet-shop, then copy a string from the shop-page, to paste back into an excel file.

This always worked fine so far, but in the last days, when I return to excel, the clipboard still pastes the value copied from excel.

To achieve my task I now have to:

-Copy from Excel

-Paste to the Browser (in my case usually "chrome")

-Then I have to go back to excel and press "esc" and go back to the browser, before...

-Copying from the Browser and...

-Go back to Excel to paste

(If I press "esc" right after copying, the clipboard is empty, when I get to the browser. Same, if I press "esc" after coming back to excel before pasting.)

This is very annoying, as it takes a lot more clicks and also interferes with my routines.

Another annoying detail is, that PureText ( https://stevemiller.net/puretext/ ) doesn't work within excel anymore. I have to use "insert values" which requires a lot more attention than:

Ctrl+C - Shortcut_PureText - Ctrl+V

Is there any way to get the old behavior of excel back (or do I have to change to OpenOffice)?

I have tried several settings in Windows and Office, but so far, the result always was as described above.

I'll be thankful for any suggestion that re-enables my old
Ctrl+C - Alt+Tab - Ctrl+V - (Enter = search) - (select string) - Ctrl+C - Alt+Tab - Ctrl+V
routine.

[Moderator note: Personal information removed]

Answer 1

Hi @Daniel Schär,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

Based on your information, it's quite an unexpected behavior since Excel has worked properly until a few days ago. There is a high possibility that there's some recent changes that can affect Excel behavior with clipboard (like Windows/Office updates, etc.). I've tested in my Excel (version 2511 Build 19426.20076) but I can copy paste properly and Excel doesn't overdrive the windows clipboard.

I suggest you can try following this guideline to narrow down the issue step by step:

1- Using Excel native shortcut for values pasting

• From your copy paste routine, you want to paste the data with its value only into another Excel worksheet/file. You can try using Ctrl + Shift + V to paste special the data value only when removing all data formatting (exactly the same as PureText).
• You can also use Ctrl + Alt + V and choose the option you want to paste the data

2- Open Excel safe mode

• Press Win + R to open Run dialog box > type excel /safe > hit Enter.
• In Safe mode, try opening the problematic file to see if the issue still persists there.

3- Repair office

• Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. 
• Find Microsoft Office, right-click, and choose Change. 
• Select Quick Repair. If that doesn’t work, try Online Repair.

Please understand that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, you can follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, I will give my all to support so we can work together to find a solution for this situation.   

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments so I can continue to support you. 

I look forward to your response.

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