Bizarre Copy-and-Paste Issue that I THINK is Related to Windows 7

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For many months with my prior computer running Vista with Firefox 3.6, I would right click an image on a web page or a URL in the address bar, select Copy Image or just Copy, then switch to Word and paste. I recently replaced that computer with a new ASUS laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium. I’m still using Firefox 3.6 because I hated the newer version. This has historically worked fine with Word 2007 as well as Word 2010. With the new computer, however, when I attempt to paste the image into the Word file initially, it appears as a smallish dot with the sizing handles typical of a graphic image. I’ve grabbed the sizing handles to enlarge it and see that it is basically a large smudge. When I repeat the process of right-click, copy image, switch to my Word document and paste, it seems to work the second time. Just to experiment, I’ve tried pasting into Excel 2010 and it’s the same situation. The first time, the graphic or link appears as a smudge no matter how many times I click Paste and whether through a right click or from the toolbar. When I go back and duplicate the exact steps of right click, copy, right click, paste, it works the 2nd time. I just tried the process using Internet Explorer and the result is the same: an initial failure followed by a successful paste.

Besides being annoyed by having to constantly duplicate the copy-paste process, I’m baffled as to why the same sequence has repeatedly failed to work the first time, but succeeds on the second try. It seems like it would either work or not. Given that all the other software is the same version, it would seem that Windows 7 is at fault, but that is obviously just speculation.

Has anyone else experienced this odd behavior? If so, did you figure out a workaround so that I don’t have to constantly repeat my copy and paste routine?

Thanks,
Victoria aka Frustrated in Texas

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I have no problem with pasting URLs or images using IE9 on Windows 7 Ultimate X64 with Office 2010. Have you tried repairing your Office install?

Joe

--Joe

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By repairing, do you mean totally reinstalling the software? Although certainly doable, I just got a decade or so of e-mails and calendar entries brought into Outlook and all of that properly configured so hate to start from scratch if I can avoid it. This is the only peculiarity that I’ve noticed other than the way Windows 7 requires one to open two separate copies of the program to display two spreadsheets side-by-side in their own window. My research shows that is a known flaw (at least many of us perceive it as such).

Thanks so much for writing,
Victoria

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With Office 2010 you can go to Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features | Uninstall a Program. Select your version of Office 2010. Click on “Change” instead of “Uninstall”. The Office 2010 setup routine will start and give you several options one of which should be ” Repair”.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Joe. I’ll give it a try over the weekend and hope that fixes this annoying issue. I appreciate your suggestion!
Victoria

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Hi Victoria

Did you fix your paste problem? I had the same one. Well. I still don’t know what the problem was, but I discovered that if I opened the app I wanted to paste into first, copy the required item then I could paste normally and get all the options. If i dont open first then the item goes in clipboard (this only seemed to happen after loading Office 2010)

I eventually deleted office, and cleared the registry of all the software entries, renstalled and all is now back to ‘normal’ . To keep your emails etc make a copy of your outlook.pst file then nyou can restore it if necessary, mine did not get dleted when office was cleared and outlook foun d it again when restarted – you will jhave to re-enter your user name/password and isp settings again and set up your options.

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This has been a hectic week so haven’t attempted a repair as suggested above. I did find a workaround that seems to be accomplishing the task in the interim, even though it definitely seems odd. What I’ve done is Select the Image | Right Click | Copy, then with my pointer still over the same image, Right Click | Copy a second time before doing my Paste into my Word document. Makes no sense to me and I’ve never had to do it before, but it has worked thus far with images until I have more time to devote to additional troubleshooting. I haven’t tried it with a URL or other object yet, but it worked with three different images so that is promising. Good luck and keep us posted!
Victoria

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