Copy & paste from Excel to non-Office applications

[bakkersmith]

I have encountered an issue with copy & paste in Office 2004 for Mac, specifically copying from Excel to any application that is NOT Office. Any block of text that exceeds 1024 characters is truncated: only the first 1024 characters appear in the other application.

i.e. Copying text in Excel and pasting to TextEdit: if the data is longer than 1024 characters, only the first 1024 characters appear when I paste in TextEdit. If I take the same data and copy it to Word, all of the text appears.

Oddly, if I take that same data and paste into Word, and then copy from Word to Text Edit, that works just fine.

So my conclusion is that Excel has some sort of copy limit.

Is there a way of setting a Preference within Excel to de-limit the amount of text I can copy to another application?

Thanks!
Steve Smith

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have encountered an issue with copy & paste in Office 2004 for Mac,
specifically copying from Excel to any application that is NOT Office. Any
block of text that exceeds 1024 characters is truncated: only the first 1024
characters appear in the other application.<br>
<br>
i.e. Copying text in Excel and pasting to TextEdit: if the data is longer
than 1024 characters, only the first 1024 characters appear when I paste in
TextEdit. If I take the same data and copy it to Word, all of the text
appears.<br>
<br>
Oddly, if I take that same data and paste into Word, and then copy from Word
to Text Edit, that works just fine.<br>
<br>
So my conclusion is that Excel has some sort of copy limit.<br>
<br>
Is there a way of setting a Preference within Excel to de-limit the amount of
text I can copy to another application?<br>
<

I can't reproduce this - If I copy a cell with 2000 characters, 2000
characters get copied to TextEdit.

Of course, only 1024 characters get displayed in the cell, since that's
the limit.

 

[Steve Smith]

Hi J.E.

Thanks for the reply...I sent an email back to you through the Microsoft website but it didn't go through. Here's my reply, except that I don't see anywhere on this help page that I can post attachments. Is there anyway I can send you the Excel document I talk about below?

Thanks!

Steve

Thanks for your reply. I was a little puzzled by what
you said at the end of your reply:

Of course, only 1024 characters get displayed in the cell, since that's
the limit.




I assume you mean that, with the formula bar visible,
you only see 1024 characters? I didn't quite
understand.

I have enclosed an Excel attachment called
"CellLengthTest". There are two cells of data (column
B) with the cell lengths listed on column A. When I
copy the first cell (B1) into Text Edit, all of it
gets copied, but when I try it with the second cell
(containing 28547 characters), only the first 1024
characters get copied.

When I try the same thing with Word, everything copies
normally.

Do you get the same result?

I'm using Office 2004 (Excel version 11.2.0), and a
MacBook OS 10.5, TextEdit 1.5.

For my actual work, I copy large cells like these into
a music notation software program, Sibelius version
4.1.0. But, I get the larger cells truncated down to
1024 characters. I use TextEdit here as my example to
illustrate the problem.

Thanks for your help!

 

[JE McGimpsey]

you said at the end of your reply:

Of course, only 1024 characters get displayed in the cell, since that's
the limit.

I assume you mean that, with the formula bar visible, you only see
1024 characters? I didn't quite understand.

Nothing to do with the formula bar. XL will only display 1024 characters
in a cell (display or printout). Up to 32767 characters will be
displayed in the formula bar's Edit box.

I have enclosed an Excel attachment called
"CellLengthTest". There are two cells of data (column
B) with the cell lengths listed on column A. When I
copy the first cell (B1) into Text Edit, all of it
gets copied, but when I try it with the second cell
(containing 28547 characters), only the first 1024
characters get copied.

No attachments in these groups, but I created a cell with 28547
characters and copied it to TextEdit

When I try the same thing with Word, everything copies
normally.

Do you get the same result?
No

I'm using Office 2004 (Excel version 11.2.0), and a
MacBook OS 10.5, TextEdit 1.5.

You're significantly behind in updates. The latest XL04 version is
11.3.7, and you should dowload and apply the Office 2004 11.3.5 through
11.4.0 updates (in order). They can be found on Mactopia:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

I really don't think that will solve your problem, but it's possible.

Can you reproduce this with any other workbook? If not, try copying the
contents to a new workbook (via Copy/Paste, not Copy or Move worksheet)

 

[bakkersmith]

I've updated Office/Excel/Word to the latest version for Office 2004 (11.4.1) but I still have the same issue.

Anytime I copy an Excel cell to another application (i.e. TextEdit), the data gets truncated to 1024 characters. I can still copy the entire cell, intact, to Word first, and THEN onto TextEdit, and all the characters get copied: no truncation.

There HAS to be a setting, a preference, or SOMETHING, that is limiting the Excel clipboard when going outside of Office.

Any other ideas? Are there places I can take my laptop to have this checked out? I've been to the Apple store Genius Bar, and this is one problem they haven't been able to resolve, so they're convinced the issue is somewhere within Excel.

Thanks!

Steve

 

[bakkersmith]

Solution (I think)...

This seems very strange to me, but it works!

If instead of just using "Paste", I can use "Paste and Match Style", and this seems to copy the entire cell with no truncation.

Now that I've somewhat solved this...why would this be the case? All of the data in the cell is using the same font style, etc.

s

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I've updated Office/Excel/Word to the latest version for Office 2004 (11.4.1)
but I still have the same issue.

Anytime I copy an Excel cell to another application (i.e. TextEdit), the data
gets truncated to 1024 characters. I can still copy the entire cell, intact,
to Word first, and THEN onto TextEdit, and all the characters get copied: no
truncation.

There HAS to be a setting, a preference, or SOMETHING, that is limiting the
Excel clipboard when going outside of Office.

Any other ideas? Are there places I can take my laptop to have this checked
out? I've been to the Apple store Genius Bar, and this is one problem they
haven't been able to resolve, so they're convinced the issue is somewhere
within Excel.

Thanks!

Steve

Yes, there is something that is limiting the Excel clipboard - it's Excel's
design. So, there are no preferences or any other parameter that can be
changed to alter this behavior. If you check the specifications, you'll see
that although a cell can contain 32,767 characters, only the first 1024 can
be displayed in a cell. So, what you are seeing is exactly what I'd expect
based on the specifications. With the cell selected, you should be able to
copy all the contents by dragging across the contents in the formula bar,
where the cell's entire contents are displayed.

 

[bakkersmith]

Hi Bob:

Thanks..that seems to work! To get all of the contents in the formula bar into the clipboard, is there a quicker method than dragging? I tried putting the cursor in the formula bar and Selecting All, but that doesn't work...so far, dragging seems to be the best option.

This limitation wasn't in previous versions of Excel (I'm thinking Office 2000). Do you know if it's also a limitation in Office 2008? I"m using Office 2004...

Thanks again for the answer...FINALLY someone has confirmed my observations that only the first 1024 characters get copied...

Steve

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Hi Bob:

Thanks..that seems to work! To get all of the contents in the formula bar into
the clipboard, is there a quicker method than dragging? I tried putting the
cursor in the formula bar and Selecting All, but that doesn't work...so far,
dragging seems to be the best option.

This limitation wasn't in previous versions of Excel (I'm thinking Office
2000). Do you know if it's also a limitation in Office 2008? I"m using Office
2004...

Thanks again for the answer...FINALLY someone has confirmed my observations
that only the first 1024 characters get copied...

Steve

No, I can't think of any other way than dragging. As far as I know, this has
been an Excel limit for a long time on all platforms. Yes, there is still
the 1024 limit in Excel 2008.

 

[bakkersmith]

O.K....guess I'll continue to drag it..thanks again for your help!

s

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I thought you said Paste and Match Style worked to paste it all into
TextEdit? That seems easier than a long drag.