Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Sometimes can't paste copied text into OpenOffice. Instead it's pasting the last, previously copied text from within OO itself.

I have experienced this problem already on Windows Vista, and am now experiencing the same on a freshly installed (previously formatted) Windows 7 with OpenOffice on another Machine. Perhaps the problem is always after the system was in hybernate or standby mode, but I'm not sure about this.

1. I copy the text from Firefox (or other programs like Adobe Reader)
2. I paste (Ctrl+V) it to open office
3. The problem/bug: instead of pasting the copied text from Firefox, OO is pasting the last copied text from within OO itself. If I paste (Ctrl+V) into another program like a simple text editor or Thunderbird, it's pasting the right, last copied object.

If I close OO and reopen it, it's working again for the moment. But this shouldn't be the solution, right? Any idea whats going wrong?

Please don't double-post the same question in different areas of the forum. I have removed your other identical thread. See: The Survival guide (TheGurkha, Moderator)
Title Edited. A descriptive title for posts helps others who are searching for solutions and increases the chances of a reply (Hagar, Moderator).

What happens if you right-click and choose Paste, or use Edit > Paste Special?

Right-Click -> Paste, Ctrtl+Shift+V, Edit -> Paste... It's the same behaviour.

Perhaps there is something on some web pages that you are trying to paste that is messing up OOo. One thing to try would be next time it happens, re-start OOo which you say seems to reset something so that cut/paste works, and then cut/paste from the same web page. If it doesn't work again then perhaps that indicates that not all web pages can be pasted into Writer.

As a workaround, you could try to paste into something other than writer, and then cut/paste from that into Writer and see if that works.

I was having the exact same problem yesterday with OOo 3.1.1 and Windows 7. Pasting from Firefox 3.6 RC 1 did not work at all. I was not able to copy/paste content from the address bar nor the content from a web page. All options within OOo were pretty much grayed out (really, a lot of them - I should have made a screenshot for reference).

Things I tried to do;

1. Restarting OOo
2. Restarting Firefox
3. Removing my user data

None seemed to make any difference. Pasting from e.g. IE and Notepad worked fine.

Later today, as soon as I'm back home from work, I'll see if drastic measures (a reboot for example) will make any difference.

Did I mention yet that it was rather annoying?

E-B wrote:Pasting from Firefox 3.6 RC 1 did not work at all.

Confirmed on Vista. Paste options remain grayed out in OOo 3.1.1 and DEV300m69 after copying content from Firefox 3.6 RC1. The same content can be pasted in Word 2010 Beta, WordPad, Notepad++.

Edit:
See the bug report: Can't paste from clipboard after copying from certain programs (Issue 67683)

A new issue has been opened for the pasting from Firefox problem:

Copy/Paste from Firefox 3.6rc1 doesn't work

Nothing to do with Firefox.
I am having the same issue right now when trying to copy from Firefox OR from IE8 OR Adobe Indesign CS4 OR Notepad. It just pastes some older text.

I don't see this issue with Firefox or Notepad on Windows 7.

AndreiMH wrote:Nothing to do with Firefox.
I am having the same issue right now when trying to copy from Firefox OR from IE8 OR Adobe Indesign CS4 OR Notepad. It just pastes some older text.

You have a different problem. The original problem was caused by a bug in the Firefox release candidate.

I too am unable to copy and paste to writer from any of my browsers IE8, Firefox, Flock, and Safari. I'm also unable to copy/paste from email (Thunderbird) and from Foxit pdf reader. I used to be able to do this but somewhere along the line this feature stopped working. The copy/paste function does work in other programs and it does work on text already typed manually within writer. I have gone as far as removing OO and downloading and reinstalling bu I still get the same result.

I have had this also on occasions. It hasn't happened for a little while now, but I think it also occurred when copying from and to OpenOffice, eg, copying from 1 writer document to another or from Writer to Calc. If I closed down OpenOffice and restarted it, then it would work. (MInd you, sometime Thunderbird won't allow me to paste, so perhaps it's just Vista...?)

Sometimes can't paste copied text into OpenOffice. Instead it's pasting the last, previously copied text from within OO itself.

I too have this problem, as do several other people on this and other forums. I didn't spot your post, and I posted Copy into writer uses the previous contents of the clipboard at http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic ... &highlight and then raised a bug report Paste from clipboard pastes the previous contents of the clipboard at https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=110217.

I see the problem with Writer, Calc and Impress so it looks like it is the OO user interface, not the specific application. I originally thought it could be a Windows 7 64 bit problem, but it has also been reported on XP (I don't know if that was 32 bit or 64 bit XP).

Unfortunately the bug report has been closed as "WORKSFORME"

This has now been accepted as a bug in the Open Office API, not just in Writer - see Issue 113171 - OO does not paste the text contents of the Windows clipboard - instead, it pastes the previous text copied in OO . You can vote your support to get it fixed.

Two workarounds are (remembering always to use copy not cut just in case you have problems!)

1 When it happens, copy anything from the document you are copying INTO. This usually "resets" the OO Copy function.

2 It seems that "mouse copy" uses a different process to do copy/paste. So, highlight the text to be copied in the other document and drag it to OOo. Or highlight it, and R-click, choose copy. R-click inside OOo and choose paste.

It seems that when you place something new on the Windows clipboard, the message that the contents of the clipboard have been changed does not get through to OOo. Or it may be that when OOo asks for the contents of the clipboard, the contents do not get sent to OOo. In either case, OOo has an internal store which, as expected, still has the previous data in it, so the previous data gets pasted.

I have this same problem, but it happens when I copy from calc to firefox or even from one cell in calc to another. If firefox is open first, then calc hangs for about ten seconds when I copy or cut. But if I open calc first, then firefox and copy or cut, I have no problems.

Just do a PrintScreen and again try copying the data into open office apps. This way the clipboard would be reset and will work fine.
I had the same problema and the above method works for me.

The previous suggestion, first pasting to another application (such as MSWord) and then to OO, worked for me 100%. It broke through whatever was suddenly and unexpectedly blocking the paste function, and caused it to work again!

To specify the issue, the problem is like this -

If you copy any thing in Open office writer, paste in Indesign, again copy something from indesign and paste back in Open office writer, the writer does not let it paste, instead it pastes the same matter which was previously copied from writer.

I did not find this issue in OpenOffice 3.1, but it is too annoying on Oo 4.1.1

As this bug is not solved yet, please consider my request to solve it.

Thank you

Welcome to the forum.

We are users like you, not developers, and we have no say in what does or does not get fixed.

Any user can vote for the bug to be fixed by going to Issue 113171 - OO does not paste the text contents of the Windows clipboard - instead, it pastes the previous text copied in OO. The more votes an issue gets, the more attention is paid to it ...

As it is a complex problem which only affects a tiny number of people it is unlikely to get much attention from the developers. I was experiencing it regularly some years ago but it no longer happens to me although I made no changes to my system. I strongly suspect it could (partially?) be a Windows problem although there are known issues with the AOO clipboard coding.

Edit: The identical problem has been reported in LibreOffice suggesting it is something in the code common to AOO and LO. I still think Windows contributes as, whereas I have made no changes to my system, what was a frequent occurrence has now stopped. This suggests a Windows update has caused the change in behaviour.

Ok. Thanks