Excel and third-party clipboard managers

[superboyac]

I use several clipboard managers:
--CHS
--NoteFrog
--Ethervane Echo
--AceText

Excel always has issues with these.  Whenever I start copying/pasting cells around in excel and I have the clipboard managers running, I get some kind of error about clipboard chains and what not coming up with every copy paste keystroke.  It's annoying as hell.  I've scoured the net and can't figure out a way to get excel to play nice with them.  I don't want to disable them because I use each for particular things.  What is Excel's problem?  It's very sensitive about clipboard management...it's like a prissy little kid, "my way or else I'll cry".  Frankly, I can do without excel's clipboard features.  Thoughts?

[eleman]

I have no idea why you experience the problem, but here's my data on the matter, it may help you in the troubleshooting department:

clipx+excel from office 2003

no problems at all.

[bob99]

After never having a problem over the years I've only just started seeing a "cannot empty clipboard" (or to that effect) with Excel 2003 during the past week or so.  Like you I've searched and did come up with the following forums addressing the issue.  You may have already seen them but here are the links anyway.

From Microsoft Answers
On Mr. Excel forum
Online Tech Tips
Online Tech Tips provides a number of things to try.

What was brought up in a couple of them is some other process hanging on to the clipboard.  Recently I've been running Clipboard Help+Spell, Ethervane Echo and Screenshot Captor at the same time. And it's since I've been running all three that I've seen the error.  So maybe it has to do with running all three at the same time. Or maybe even some other program. I did install some others during that time also. I haven't had the time to try different combinations to figure it out.  I've just been hitting ok and moving on. Most of the articles do mention it will need to be a process of elimination to determine which other program is causing it.

[superboyac]

I know, I've read those.  The thing is...I don't really want to disable the clipboard managers.  What I would rather disable is Excel's nazi control on the clipboard.  I don't need any of Excel's clipboard features, i really don't.  They're a nuisance at best.  The third party tools blows any of microsofts clipboard conveniences out of the water.

[MerleOne]

--Ethervane Echo
--AceText

Excel always has issues with these.  Whenever I start copying/pasting cells around in excel and I have the clipboard managers running, I get some kind of error about clipboard chains and what not coming up with every copy paste keystroke.  It's annoying as hell.  I've scoured the net and can't figure out a way to get excel to play nice with them.  I don't want to disable them because I use each for particular

Did you try Clipcache pro from Xrayz (not Linkstash actually, another of their products) ?  I use it since a few weeks ago, and it works fine with Excel 2007.

[AndyM]

I've been using an old version of ClipCache Pro with an old version of Excel (2002) with no problems for a long time.

[J-Mac]

Doesn’t really matter which one you use, if you are using Excel 2007 or 2010 the Office Clipboard simply will not get along with the clip utility. I HATE this about MS Office, and I'll probably drop Office altogether. I'm trying to find out if Softmaker Office acts this way with the clipboard.

BTW you can turn off the Office clipboard in Excel 2010 - I did but now I get errors whenever I copy anything in Excel. This is one Microsoft program "feature" that really sucks worse than most!

Jim

[MerleOne]

Doesn’t really matter which one you use, if you are using Excel 2007 or 2010 the Office Clipboard simply will not get along with the clip utility. I HATE this about MS Office, and I'll probably drop Office altogether. I'm trying to find out if Softmaker Office acts this way with the clipboard.

BTW you can turn off the Office clipboard in Excel 2010 - I did but now I get errors whenever I copy anything in Excel. This is one Microsoft program "feature" that really sucks worse than most!

Jim

We have Excel 2007 @ work, and clipcache latest version seems to work fine, but I have not tested it extensivey. What do you mean by "it doesn't get along" ?

[J-Mac]

Hi Merle.

What bugs me - and pretty much always has with Excel - is that the Office Clipboard takes over and tries to abandon whatever other program you use (the regular Windows Clipboard if none) and then it allows you to copy and paste ONLY until you press the Enter key - for any reason - or the Escape key. Maybe a few others I'm missing here in my haste to post this. You'll know it ahead of time if you see the dotted, blinking line surrounding whatever you copied. Then that bit of copied material is gone and you have to re-copy it. I absolutely hate that. I always use the Enter key to complete any entries in Excel and like I said that kills the ability to use the copied cell(s). Now if I open the ClipMate window it says something like "Clipboard has no data", or ""Clipboard data has been erased", depending on exactly how Excel tried to clear the clipboard. Of course all my copied data is still there in ClipMate but if I want to paste it I need to cursor back down to the entry and then paste it. It's just a lot of extra crap that I should not have to do.

So I searched and found that I can turn off the damn Office Clipboard. Hooray! Except now anytime I copy anything at all in Excel I get the error message pop-up that is attached below. Not once but anywhere from twice to who the hell knows! If it just keeps popping up too much Excel closes all by its lonesome. BTW it has nothing to do with copying an image; whatever I copy Excel pops that message up. If you Google the problem you'll find thousands of hits but no solutions. I'm thinking a fine solution might be going back to using Softmaker Office and only use OneNote from my Office Pro software.

Jim

[attachimg=#1]

[MerleOne]

Did you try using ClipCache instead of ClipMate & Excel ? If I copy some cells within Excel then paste them at another location, then press escape so that the dotted blinking line is no longer visible, I can return to Clipcache, copy the last entry, and paste it again in Excel.  I just tried with cells having simple numbers, not formulas.

[J-Mac]

Did you try using ClipCache instead of ClipMate & Excel ?

No... why should I when I bought ClipMate and have used it for years now?

If I copy some cells within Excel then paste them at another location, then press escape so that the dotted blinking line is no longer visible, I can return to Clipcache, copy the last entry, and paste it again in Excel.  I just tried with cells having simple numbers, not formulas.

Yes - and I mentioned that I can also do that with ClipMate - look at my previous post. Point is, why should I have to always go back and re-copy the entry before I can paste it? Again, read my previous post!

Thank you.

Jim

[MerleOne]

No... why should I when I bought ClipMate and have used it for years now?
...
Yes - and I mentioned that I can also do that with ClipMate - look at my previous post. Point is, why should I have to always go back and re-copy the entry before I can paste it? Again, read my previous post!
...

I see what you mean for the second point.  Regarding the first one, I just mentioned "trying", not "buying".  But I guess it's no longer useful since ClipCache seems to work the same way. Sorry !

[J-Mac]

Hey Merle, my last post sure reads a lot more abrupt than it seemed to when I wrote it. IIRC I was very rushed trying to get somewhere and didn't really take the time to post properly. Sorry about that.

Yeah, I realize that it isn't the worst thing in the world but I have never been able to determine just why Microsoft felt the need to create a separate "Office Clipboard" that tries to disable the regular Windows Clipboard and then control what you can copy/paste and when. What was the rationale behind it? It has always seemed like a PITA to me. If I want to paste something several places in a spreadsheet I don’t want to be going back and re-copying it over and over again. Pity the poor souls who don’t use a separate clipboard manager; they have to continually go back to the original copied content and copy it over and over. And I can't see any benefit to the separate clipboard!

Thanks!

Jim