Summary
- Unlike the Windows 11 clipboard, the Microsoft Office clipboard stays on screen as you work.
- The Office clipboard can store items copied from both Microsoft applications and non-Microsoft programs, using icons to allow you to work more efficiently.
- Even though the Office clipboard has a capacity of 24 items, you can easily remove unwanted content to create some clipboard space.
Many people know the age-old technique of pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste information, not only when using Microsoft Office but across most programs on most operating systems. However, if you are using Microsoft Office, it can be useful to copy and paste more than one item at a time.
I’ll use Microsoft Word to demonstrate how the clipboard works, but you can also use the same method in PowerPoint and Excel.
If you’re using Windows 11, you can press Windows+V at any time to see and paste all the items you have copied recently. However, whenever you click away from the Windows Clipboard window, it disappears, so you need to press Windows+V each time you want to access it.
This is why, if you’re using a Microsoft Office application, you should use the Microsoft Office clipboard—it remains on screen as you continue to work, meaning you can access it whenever you need it.
In this example, I want to copy several sentences from one document and paste them into another.
Rather than going through the Ctrl+C-Ctrl+V process individually for each sentence, jumping back and forth between the two windows each time, I can copy all items in my first document that I need to duplicate at the same time, and then paste them all into my second wherever I want them to go.
If you also want to copy several items from one Microsoft Office file to another, first, in the document containing the text you want to copy, click the clipboard pane launcher icon in the Clipboard group of the Home tab on the ribbon.
The copied items don’t have to be text—you can also add graphics to the Office clipboard.
Now, whenever you select and copy an item, you’ll see it appear in the clipboard pane.
After selecting and copying all the items you want to paste, head to the destination file, and click the clipboard pane launcher icon to see those copied items. Place your cursor where you want to paste one of the copied items, and click the item in the clipboard pane to paste it in that location.
Repeat this process until all the items you have copied are pasted in the positions you want them to be.
Alternatively, click “Paste All” to paste all the items in the order in which they were added to the clipboard.
In fact, the text you want to copy doesn’t have to be in another Microsoft Office application. Indeed, this tool works for any copied data. Each time you select any copyable information in any program and press Ctrl+C, it is temporarily stored in the Microsoft Office clipboard, meaning that when you open the Clipboard pane, you’ll see it added to the list of copied items. To make navigating the clipboard pane easier, each item in the clipboard pane has an icon next to it that represents where it came from.
Since the Microsoft Office clipboard can only hold up to 24 items, when you’ve pasted an item, you can remove it by clicking the item’s drop-down arrow and clicking “Delete.”
If you copy a twenty-fifth item, it replaces the oldest item on the Office clipboard.
To clear your Office clipboard of all items, click “Clear All” at the top of the clipboard pane.
You can adjust how the Office clipboard behaves to suit your needs. For example, to convert the clipboard pane to a movable window, place your cursor next to the word “Clipboard” to activate what is called the “move cursor” (four arrows), and click and drag the pane to a different location on your screen.
To move the clipboard back to its original left-hand pane position, click and drag it back to the left of your screen, and release your mouse when it locks into position.
Try also clicking “Options” at the bottom of the clipboard pane to automatically display the Office clipboard when copying items, activate a keyboard shortcut to launch the clipboard, and create other personalized clipboard scenarios.
If the copy-paste function does not work on your Windows 11 system, there are various ways you can fix it, including trying alternative methods, clearing the clipboard history, scanning for a malware infection, or, as a last resort, performing a system restore.
