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The Clipboard is cleared when opening a Contact

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› Outlook › People › The Clipboard is cleared when opening a Contact

Last reviewed on February 16, 2024     2 Comments

When you open a Contact form, all data on the clipboard is cleared. If you look at the Office clipboard, you might see some icons in the clipboard, ahead of the text you copied.

This is caused by add-ins which add icons to your toolbars. When the contact form loads, the addin pastes an icon to the tools it adds. The icon replaces your text on the clipboard and since it's not text, it can't be pasted into most fields.

You have two choices:

  1. Uninstall or disable the add-in
  2. Open the contact first (Shift+Ctrl+C) then copy the text and paste

How do you know which add-in causes it? Look at the icons in the Office Clipboard, then disable the add-ins that use those icons and test it.

The following add-ins are known to cause this problem:

  • MapPoint's Outlook add-in (some versions)
  • Stamps.com's Outlook integration
  • Aladdins Envelopes and Labels Version 6 (latest)
  • Norton Internet Security Professional
  • Pando Antivirus
  • Adobe Contribute Plugin

To disable add-ins, open Outlook's Tools, Options, Other, Advanced Options dialog then click the COM add-ins button.

Developer Information

If you are developing an add-in and need to add your icon to the toolbar button, you can avoid this problem by saving the contents of the clipboard before pasting their buttons, then restoring the contents after clearing your buttons from the clipboard.

If the add-in is for Microsoft Outlook 2002/2003 only, you can set the CommandBarButton.Picture property directly to an instance of the IPicture object bypassing the clipboard. If you need to support older versions, use an if... then.. else... statement to determine the version and method.

  • VBA sample saving the contents of the clipboard and restoring it after a paste

If you need help using these methods, visit the forums at Outlook Forums, or the Outlook programming forum at MSDN

The Clipboard is cleared when opening a Contact was last modified: February 16th, 2024 by Diane Poremsky

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About Diane Poremsky

A Microsoft Outlook Most Valuable Professional (MVP) since 1999, Diane is the author of several books, including Outlook 2013 Absolute Beginners Book. She also created video training CDs and online training classes for Microsoft Outlook. You can find her helping people online in Outlook Forums as well as in the Microsoft Answers and TechNet forums.

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Joan MacRae
October 31, 2012 8:18 am

I keep getting an email alert saying I have too much data saved on my clipboard. How do I open Clipboard. I see no link or icon on my desktop for clipboard.
Awaiting your response. Thank you

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Diane Poremsky
Reply to  Joan MacRae
October 31, 2012 1:28 pm

What version of Outlook? In Outlook 2007 and 2010, open a new message and in the area where the paste icon is, click the little expander icon to display the office clipboard.

If you only have one item, the message is telling you that you have one large copy on the clipboard - paste it into notepad or a new email message to see what it is.

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