Office Clipboard Task Pane stops functioning

[Guest]

I have an installation of Office 2003 on one of my desks with an end user
that uses the clipboard taskpane heavily. Every day around 2:00 the
clipboard stops functioning. He still has the ability to cut and paste the
normal way just not through clipboard. I've tried running a repair office
and that didn't seem to work. Any thoughts?

 

[Tony Jollans]

Does it stop *functioning* - or stop appearing?

If it happens every day that implies it works again after (a) a restart of
Word (b) a reboot or (c) some overnight process. Which might it be? - does
closing Word and reopening restore it? - or rebooting?

 

[Guest]

It continutes to appear with it's contents intact however, unable to paste
from it. A soft reboot doesn't fix the issue since the next morning with a
hard boot fixes the problem. I think we're going to be reduced to a
reinstall rather than spend more time on the issue.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Reinstalling isn't difficult and does fix some problems but, generally
speaking, if a repair hasn't solved the problem a reinstall probably won't
either.

I don't know what may cause the problem (and I don't know what you consider
a soft boot); all I can do is offer some thoughts and maybe some things to
try.

You say you can't paste - is that any item?. What a paste does is
effectively a dual action, copying from the Office clipboard to the Windows
clipboard and pasting to the destination. As you can paste normally (from
the Windows clipboard) it must be the copy from the Office clipboard that is
failing.

You say the office clipboard continues to appear with contents intact - does
it continue to gather copied items?

Can you delete individual office clipboard entries - or delete all / clear?
Can you do a paste all?
Can you use the office clipboard normally in other office applications?
If any of the above work, do they affect later actions in any way?

Is it a particular type of data that triggers / causes the problem? Or
always in a particular document (or a document based on a particular
template)?

If this always happens around the same time, is there something else happens
around that time? Or does it appear to be a cumulative effect of just doing
'too much' copying? Does the clipboard contain 24 items when it fails?

Sorry not to be more helpful.

 

[Guest]

I'm having a similar problem with Word 2003 where the clipboard no longer
shows a grid of copied items when you want to place several words pieces on
it. It used to do that and nothing much has changed in software or harware
before it stopped.

-any simple fix?

thanks

 

[Tony Jollans]

Are you saying the office clipboard no longer shows? If so, show it
explicitly with Edit > Office Clipboard and then look at the Options (button
at the bottom).

Or are you saying it shows but does not collect? In which case, again, look
at the Options behind the button.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for responding- its 'shows' in a pane, but not in grid in the middle
of the page as it did originally, where you can sellow the items you want to
paste

 

[Tony Jollans]

It changed format between Word 2000 and Word 2003.

Do the items not show listed in the Pane?

If not, what options are selected if you click on Options at the bottom?

 

[Guest]

New here. Sorry, I may have posted a blank message. Wasn't sure of the
process. I was working in FrontPage and copied some code from one page to
another, but what pasted was not what I copied. I opened the clipboard and it
showed greyed out icons for 7 of 24 items. I selected "clear all" but my
computer just crunched and crunched for half an hour and nothing happened. I
started clipboard.exe to see if there was a way to clear the contents. When
the window popped up, there was what looked like a constant flashing of
items, but I could not close the window. I aborted the process. I ran the
Office reinstall selecting the repair option, but nothing changed. I have
searched the KB exhaustively for any way to clear the clipboard, but can't
find anything. I was hoping to find the file where the items are stored, to
possibly delete this file, but can find no reference to this.

 

[Guest]

It changed format between Word 2000 and Word 2003.

Do the items not show listed in the Pane?

If not, what options are selected if you click on Options at the bottom?

 

[Tony Jollans]

I don't know anything to explain what you describe, but a couple of things.

Firstly I think you are confusing the Office Clipboard and the Windows
Clipboard. The Office Clipboard (with the 24 items) is an Office extension
to the Windows Clipboard.

Both Windows and Office Clipboards, AFAIK, only use memory - I don't believe
there is any file anywhere which stores clipboard items. Do you still have
the problem if you reboot?

I don't use FrontPage and there may be something specific within it that
causes your problem. If you need any further help I would suggest you ask in
a FrontPage newsgroup rather than a Word one as you are more likely to find
people with FrontPage expertise there.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Tony. No, it's not a FrontPage issue. This is just where I first
noticed it. It happens in all Office programs, and the clipboard is acting
erratically everywhere. I cannot copy and paste the simplest thing now. I
have rebooted several times. I read on Microsoft site somewhere that the
clipboard should empty on reboot, but I still have 24 unrecognizable objects
in there. I ran clipbrd.exe again a little while ago and it just keeps
flashing with what looks like screenshots of my desktop. It runs forever
until I abort.

 

[Tony Jollans]

Hi ChecMark,

Sounds like you've got a stuck Print Screen key.

 

[Guest]

Some interesting and very weird additional things are happening. I was
composng a new email and did a cut and paste just for curiousity. What pasted
was a complete screen capture of my Outlook and the new email and the Paste
command menu. I then went into my Corel PSP program and did a paste to see if
I got the same thing. What I got was a complete screen capture of my Corel
Desktop, complete with the paste command menu shown. It appears that somehow
"copy" is grabbing a compete screen capture of what I'm working on and not
what I selected to copy. This is probably the reason the file is beyond full
because, instead of snippets of text copied, it's grabbing the entire screen.