Why does Outlook's clipboard clear when I create a new message?

September 15, 2008 7:38 AM

Why does Outlook's clipboard clear when I create a new message?

I can't take it anymore - I must fix this. I go to a website, or a Word doc or another email and copy anything. Then I go back to Outlook, open up a new message or reply to one and whatever I have just copied is GONE. Save me, please.

posted by AquaAmber to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

What version of Outlook? What version of Windows (assuming you're using Windows)? Service pack? Any third-party utilities installed that affect your clipboard? Can you paste into Word or other applications? When you paste, do you get an icon instead of the expected text? When you paste, does your cursor move down like there was something pasted, but it's just not visible? Does it happen when you paste with the mouse, the menu or the keyboard?
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:11 AM on September 15, 2008

Response by poster: It's Outlook 2000 - we have the whole Office suite. We're using Windows XP.

Other pasting is fine - into Word, Excel, etc. The only problem I have is when I open up a new message or reply to one. Then the clipboard dumps whatever I've copied, regardless of content. It doesn't even give me the option to paste (no right-click, option, or keyboard) - it's completely forgotten that I copied anything in the first place.
posted by AquaAmber at 8:57 AM on September 15, 2008

Sorry not to reply earlier - I had to go to work. Grumble, grumble.

I think you might know this, but, just in case: There are TWO clipboards that are at work here. Office has its own clipboard, and Windows has a separate clipboard. The Office clipboard is only available within Office, but the Windows clipboard is available everywhere.

Could you verify which scenario(s) below work(s)?

1) Copy text from Outlook and paste to Outlook (sounds like this is a problem)

2) Copy text from Outlook and paste to notepad

3) Copy text from notepad and paste to Outlook (You said copying from a website and pasting into Outlook is a problem, but try notepad as well)

4) Copy text from notepad and paste to notepad (gets the Office clipboard totally out of the loop)

I'm especially interested in whether #2 and #3 work.

What happens if you already have an email message open, and then copy, and then try to paste into the open message? You only mentioned opening the message after you've already copied to the clipboard.

Also, can you display your Office clipboard pane? In Outlook 2007, you go to the Edit menu, and choose Office Clipboard. I'm not sure how to do it in 2000.

Also, I googled "outlook 2000 clipboard paste problem" and came up pretty dry, except for mentions of clipboard add-on utilities. Do you have any kind of add-ons to Outlook that might affect the clipboard?

Last question - does this happen whether your default email format is plain text, rich text or HTML?
posted by SuperSquirrel at 1:59 PM on September 15, 2008

AquaAmber, did you ever solve this?
I'm experiencing the same problem.
SuperSquirrel, I can go through the list of questions that were posted but what do I do with the information?
posted by cdm at 8:54 AM on August 9, 2009