Copy/Paste Problem

[Bill Martin]

Suddenly my copy/paste is broken -- presumably I've inadvertently mucked up
some bit of profile somewhere but I haven't stumbled upon it. I'm using
Excel 2003 under XP with all current patches.

I've always been able to open up two workbooks and copy something from one
book then paste it into the other. Suddenly that no longer works. Now I
can copy some data but when I switch to the second workbook the Paste option
is grayed out like nothing has been copied. I can copy/paste within one
workbook, but when I select the second workbook the clip board is apparently
empty.

Any ideas what can cause such behavior?

Thanks.

Bill

 

[Dave Peterson]

One of the side effects of most macros is that the clipboard gets cleared.

This can be a macro that you explicitly run or one that is automatically run--a
workbook/worksheet event.

The first thing I'd try is to open excel with macros disabled.

Close excel
windows start button|Run
excel /safe
click ok

(Starting in safe mode will disable lots of stuff--including macros.)

Then file|open both workbooks and test it out.

If it works ok, then I'd look for an event macro under each workbook's project
in the ThisWorkbook module.

 

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:26:17 -0400 from Bill Martin

I've always been able to open up two workbooks and copy something from one
book then paste it into the other. Suddenly that no longer works. Now I
can copy some data but when I switch to the second workbook the Paste option
is grayed out like nothing has been copied. I can copy/paste within one
workbook, but when I select the second workbook the clip board is apparently
empty.

I'm confused. Are you saying you can copy/paste from A to A and from
B to B, but not from A to B? Or can you copy/paste from A to A but
not from A to B and not from B to B?

If it's the second thing: Is workbook B read-only, or protected?

 

[Bill Martin]

Apparently you're right, though I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet.
Opening the workbooks in Safe mode does allow the copy/paste to work across
workbooks. I'm a bit stumped though as I have been using this particular
workbook, chock full of macros, for a year or so without problem.

I'll have to do some work on this. Thanks for pointing me to try the Safe
mode.

Bill
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[Bill Martin]

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:26:17 -0400 from Bill Martin


I'm confused. Are you saying you can copy/paste from A to A and from
B to B, but not from A to B? Or can you copy/paste from A to A but
not from A to B and not from B to B?

If it's the second thing: Is workbook B read-only, or protected?

 

[Bill Martin]

Ok, the problem was.....<drum roll>.....a macro. Buried in my Library file
(always loaded) I have a routine that is called from various workbooks every
time you activate a different workbook. The macro just deletes out whatever
custom buttons had been left in the tool bar by the previously active
workbook.

While changing something trivial in that macro I threw in for no good reason
the line:
Application.Calculation = xlCalculationAutomatic

Removing that makes the copy/paste work once again.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Bill
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