Comments on: Fix for Cannont Empty the Clipboard in Office

By: SW

SW — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:34:54 +0000

I encountered the same error on my Windows 7 machine with Excel 2010. It seems the problem for me was caused by a Skype add-on with Chrome, IE, and Forefox. In cases where either Chrome, IE or Firefox is open (I have both installed), and I’m working in Excel 2010, the error occured. I went into both all of the browsers and “disabled” any add-on related to Skype. This solved my problem. I don’t need the Skype add-on (at least not for a reason that I can figure out) so disabling it causes no loss of functionality.

By: Sverrir

Sverrir — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:58:23 +0000

Finally a SOLUTION to this problem. MS Excel 2007. I´ve been reading posts all over the net from people having this extremely annoying problem. It was driving me crazy, to say the least.

None of the posted “solutions” did work for me. I´m using MS Office 2007 (and therefore Excel 2007).

Keeping Outlook open while working in excel has never been a problem.

The problem is Skype, yes SKYPE. Uninstall Skype and the problem goes away.

You can also try:
deactivate the add-ons/ins (skype Plugins) that are enabled on IE (MS explorer).
Steps: Tools / Manage add-ons / select and disable.

Hope this will work for you all, it sure did work for me

(spread the word and make Skype fix this)

By: Darian

Darian — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 13:49:58 +0000

I tried some of the methods mentioned including closing Outlook, but no luck. However, did notice that although I closed Excel, the Excel process was still running in task manager. After killing the process, and restarting Excel, the error went away. Gotta love MS;-)

By: Vaughn

Vaughn — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:47:58 +0000

This is the first time that I encountered this issue. It is happening in Excel 2003. Survey says that “Brad” is the man!!! I am pretty geeky and had tried everything short of rebooting and all I had to do was close Outlook (which is open all the time). BTW: deleting the task would most likely have solved it, but not when you are work and don’t have admin rights!!!

By: Skitilix

Skitilix — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:12:03 +0000

I installed the newest CCleaner and ran the cleaner (reguler cleaner nor registry).

That worked for me, I use Win 7 64bit and excel 2003.

By: nithiyanandan

nithiyanandan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:03:07 +0000

You are a great help for all us who get this weird message.

Thanks for fixing it for me.

By: majo

majo — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:24:38 +0000

Hi.

I have the same problem, too, with the ‘cannot empty clipboard’ thing. Your method 1 works for me, but it’s only for copying and pasting in Excel itself. I still cannot copy data from Excel then paste it in another location such as notepad, outlook, etc. The final solution is that I must restart my PC.

But, thanks for your sharing.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:59:21 +0000

Thank you Brad! Closing Outlook is what did the trick for me.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:26:22 +0000

Comment 14 sorted it for me. Thanks, Jared.

I have a Vista laptop with a virtual PC set up for all my RDPing.

Intermittently, on the Vista laptop I was finding Excel gave ‘cannot empty clipboard’, and Outlook would not copy/paste at all. Opening a notepad on the virtual PC and a couple of copy-pastes in there got the functionality back so I can copy from Outlook to Excel and vice versa again on the Vista machine, and between the virtual and Vista machines.

Anyone know how to find the clipboard to empty it on Vista as there is no ‘clipbrd.exe’ or anything similar that I can find?

By: Ali

Ali — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:52:27 +0000

Well. Thank you! I could never copy and paste anything in Excel without that message coming up.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:05:00 +0000

I’ve had this problem sporadically and none of the published fixes I’ve found worked. Amazingly, what has worked for me is to close out OUTLOOK when I experience the problem. This fixes the problem without a reboot or any other action needed.

By: Ngoc

Ngoc — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:34:14 +0000

I’ve tried many above suggested solutions but not working. I finally got it to work by un-installing MS office completely reboot and then reinstall it again and of course reboot after that.

By: jared

jared — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:08:13 +0000

I had this problem when using PC Duo (NetSupport) within virtual PC 2007 (running XP) on Vista host machine. To fix I did another copy and paste in Virtual PC 2007 in notepad. This seemed to fix problem

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:28:02 +0000

Windows / Office is such a pile of junk imho. Yet in reality we have little choice but to use it, it is the defacto standard used by everyone else. Why are MS unable or unwilling to sort out these problems some of which are decades old ?. Sums up MS, Contemptable, imho.

By: Shells

Shells — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:57:45 +0000

I am still having this problem with Microsoft Excel! Every time I copy, I get the Cannot Empty Clipboard error and it’s driving me crazy! I tried your solution, but it didn’t help. Should I reinstall Office or is it a hardware problem?