Yet another pasting problem -- text losing formatting

[adieu]

I am a graphic designer who recently upgraded to Windows 7. I had no problems until a couple days ago when I began to have difficulty copying and pasting in the programs I use most: Adobe CS products and MS Word.

Copied text loses its formatting, such as font, style and coloring when pasted. Blocks of text lose returns, most spaces, etc.

When pasting into Word, text takes on the style of a nearby font, unless it is a font like Wingdings2, which becomes a line of dots. In Illustrator, all pasted text becomes the program's default font.

Images and objects copy and paste fine, unless text is copied as the same time, in which case only unformatted text will paste and the object or image disappears.

Any help appreciated. It's driving me crazy and creating a lot of extra work.

Cheers

 

[Ztruker]

What has changed on your system? Did you add or remove and software?

Try doing a System Restore to a time when this problem was not happening.

 

[adieu]

Nothing much has changed, though maybe installed Skype and began using a new wireless mouse and keyboard.

Tried some system restores, but not much luck. Maybe this is common in Win7, but most of my restore attempt failed due to an "unspecified error".

However, after one reboot I opened Illustrator and copy and paste worked properly for about five minutes, then quit again.

 

[Ztruker]

Save your data, do a restore to factory state, apply SP1 and updates then restore your data.

You could also try creating a new account via Control Panel, User Accounts then login as that new account and see if the problem still exists.

 

[carwiz]

What version of Word are you using? There's a paste drop-down menu that selects/controls the format. When you mouse over the options, the formating changes so you can view the effect. I believe the paste formating is retained until you change it.

 

[Anonimus]

I have Winsdows Vista, but this same problem (losing text formats) happened to me as well, just after installing Skype this Monday (19 of March 2012). I have uninstalled Skype and the problem is gone. I believe there is something wrong with the latter version.

 

[Ztruker]

Interesting info as adieu said Skype was recently installed. Hope we get some feedback.

 

[carwiz]

Sounds like it could be interfering with clipboard memory. I don't use Skype. Is there some driver that runs all the time for Skype?

 

[mcprates]

I had the same problem using Illustrator. uninstalled skype and everything returned to normal. I think the problem is the latest version of skype, because the previous did not cause this conflict.

 

[jldesseille]

Same problem, pasting formatted text (incl HTML) into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. And don't see the problem if I changed user account ... so it seems to be linked to the user account

 

[Ztruker]

DO you have Skype installed?

 

[JohnM3]

I have an identical or very similar issue.
- Windows 7 Enterprise, x64, SP1
- Office 2007 SP3

Copy/Paste only copies basic text, no formatting.
Paste Special in Excel 2007 gives me two options: Unicode Text and Text.
Of course, neither option includes formatting.
When I copy (Ctrl-C) in Excel, I do not get the usual dotted line around the copied cells.

My Word options for Cut & Paste have "use source formatting" for pasting.

I do have Skype 5.8 installed, along with Skype Click to Call.
After uninstall of both, copy/paste worked normally for Excel and Word (no reboot, but uninstall of Click to Call forced me to close Chrome).

 

[JohnM3]

Skype acknowledged the issue, specifically with the Click to Call addin for web browsers. See this link:
Skype Plugins break Excel 2010 Copy/Paste Function... - Skype Support Network

 

[rodanco]

System restore worked

Just realised I had the same problem.

Luck I picked up on it pretty shortly after.

It was a trigger from either installing apple quick time update or Pidgin IM.

 

[ipgeek]

The Problem is Caused by Other Programs

Hello

I have experienced the same issue but with OTHER programs as other people have evidently had happen. This MIGHT indicate that the memory protections that were in place for the Clip Board activity in other versions of Windows are not working in Windows 7.

I am not a developer, but since this problems can be caused by other software installation *and* since it ONLY happens with Windows 7, the problem does seem to appear to be associated with just the "clipboard" feature of Windows 7 AND when new software is installed.


Just my .02

I don't think this is a Skype issue. Its just that SKYPE is doing something "programmaticallly" that should have been stopped by the Operating System.

 

[mmeinert]

I have MS Office 2010 Professional and can confirm that the current Skype 5.10? version is the culprit. I uninstalled Skype and without re-opening the docs I wanted to copy to and fro the format of the source got copied to the destination file. Before uninstalling Skype I was using styles and as described in this thread the nearest format dictated the format in the destination file.

Talk about instant gratification!

ODD! Skype needs to get their act together.

I just reinstalled Skype ver. 5.10.0.116 and copy-pasting w/ formats is still working.