excel 2003 not keeping source formatting

I'm using IE version 6.

The copy and paste used to work fine a few days ago. When selecting data with my mouse and using crtl-c and going into excel and crtl-v originally it would paste the data as I saw it on the website. All cells were formatted nicely with alternating background colors on the cells to distinguish each line.

Now the cells are just pasted in without changing the background cell color, as normally it should. Sure the data is copied over fine but the formatting is not.

When you first paste the data into excel and go to the lower right of the pasted data a little option box appears that has a couple of options "keep source formatting" - this box is checked, but the formatting doesn't seem to carry over from IE to excel.

Also if I run ad-aware and remove all negligable objects the source formatting does work as long as I am not hooked up to the net but as soon as I log on and try another copy and paste it seems I am defaulted and it doesn't work properly.

As an example, go to this webpage http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climateData/dailydata_e.html?timeframe=2&Prov=AB&StationID=27378&Year=2006&Month=10&Day=6
Move the mouse pointer in the chart and select a few lines or even the whole chart trying not to select anything else on the page. Then crtl-c it. Go into excel and crtl-v it. (Copy paste) You should get identical charts. I don't get the coloring or the font formatting.

Thanks for this very clear explanation.

It works with me with IE7 and Excel 2000. And I can't find any setting that's meant to have it not working.

It doesn't work AT ALL when copying the same from Firefox. Apparently, it isn't really standardized how a copied html-table should look on the clipboard.

The things to try:
- System Restore back a few days ago.
- Does it work in another user account (that's another XP user)?

Kees

I'll try a system restore and maybe re-install office.

How do I change the XP user?

From Control panel>Users.

Kees

I appreciate everyones input.

I've tried a new user in win-xp, that doesn't work so it seems to be something that operates globally.

I'm about to try a system restore and a re-install. We'll see if that works. But it seems to be something that's written in the registry. Something else I might add as well, Excel would hang when I tried a copy paste so then I firewalled the excelexe file and it didn't hang anymore but shortly thereafter the copy paste function didn't work quite properly anymore. Only after an ad-aware scan and removal of a couple of negligable items did it work.

I let you know how it goes but in the meantime if you have anymore ideas, please, let me know.

Okay, I have not re-installed or restored yet, I don't think I need to.

I just found out something else that might help us diagnose my problem.

If I'm online the copy paste doesn't work. However if I disconnect and close IE-6 and close excel then open IE-6 and 'click' work offline, then find the page and copy-paste it into excel, it works! The formatting is okay. Now why won't it work while I'm connected?

It turned out to be Norton. When we junked that, some odd things began to work.

Bob

I'm using Mcaffee, but it could be a security setting or something in Internet explorer.

I'll try a couple of things but it works when I'm offline so that doesn't seem to make sense.

Mcafee is suffering the same thing. To stop some data leaks they prevent program to program communication and filter the copy and paste.

I no longer use or suggest either of these products since they have not responded to calls about how to turn off such features.

Bob

Okay, I've restored and re-installed. And no effect. Same thing.

But as you suggested maybe mcaffee is not allowing the copy-paste feature to work properly.

Then why does copy-paste work when I'm offline?

It relaxes some items when not online. Sadly they do not document what it does in detail so we are left to figure out this much like taking sticks and poking at it to see what it does.

Highly unscientific and leaves us all looking like a bunch of cave dwellers.

Bob

So how do I figure out what it is that's not allowing the proper formatting? What relaxes when I'm offline?

Is there a program I can use to log or document everything that occurs behind the scenes in a text file so I can scan through it later and find out exactly what the problem is?

Also I figured out the same thing happens in Word. It only properly copies the webpage over when I'm offline.

The answer is not acceptable to some.

I just used the one in Vista or XP. I also use Zone Alarm but their new force field appears to be having teething issues.

Bob

- Try it in Safe Mode with Internet (from the f8 boot menu).
- Disable McAfee, firewall and all other security software and see if that makes a difference.
- Disable all IE addons, and see if that makes a difference (IE7 has a rather nice add-on manager).
- Uncheck everything in msconfig>startup (but remember the settings so you can reset them exactly).
- Disable all not really necessary services.
- Download enditall2 (not free any more) or ibprocman (from sysinternals by head) and delete all process one by one until you find the culprit.

I wonder how Bob did it. He makes it a small mystery by not disclosing it.

Kees

Well I'm definitely not going to disable my firewall. Since I have to be online for it not to work, I'd have 100 hackers waiting to jump into this system as soon as I get online.

It works okay while it's offline. I'll try the msconfig and disable some services and see what happens.

Oh! One other thing I might mention. When I restored to an older point before I upgraded to 2003 I went back to office'97. It does the same thing there as well.
When I re-installed as I did the first time all I did was upgrade, I did not do a full install so this could be a reason. However I have come across numerous mentions of other people where copy-pasting html web pages to word or excel used to work and then all of a sudden stopped working. But I have found no working solution.

it's more an issue on the sending side (IE) than on the receiving side (Office).

Kees

Two things:

1. Excel doesn't use the normal.dot file, so that's not the cause.
2. It's stored on the clipboard. And if I try to look at it with the clipboard viewer (start>run>clipbrd) I see only text in lines and the view>html is gray. View>locale says it's binary, but I don't know if that's trustworthy.

Kees

1. Okay but Word formatting doesn't work when I paste it in there while I'm online. As soon as I'm offline it works. So I tried a new normal.dot file from a computer that works and that didn't help anyway.

I looked in the clipbrd viewer and I have the same information you describe - I only see text lines, view>html is gray, and view>locale says binary. I may have to do a complete re-install to get it to work the way it should but not yet and I really don't want to at this point.

I'm narrowing the problem! but still need some help.

I've seemed to trace it to the firewall. If I allow full access to both excel.exe and word.exe I am able to copy and paste the formatted pages, but while it does that there's some accessing going on and it takes much longer than when I'm offline.

So why when I'm online does it need to access something when I can copy and paste offline in a flash? Can I set it up so that I can paste like I'm offline? The application doesn't need to re-access the internet to load the information when it's already there. So what's going on? I'm only on a very slow connection (no high speed) so speed counts. I don't want to have to wait and wait each time I want to paste something from a web page.

Is there any way to modify something somewhere. Now that we know the source of the problem I want to block these applications but still have the full copy paste functionality online. Not sure if that's possible. Any thoughts?

Or rely on the one built in Windows XP. Tell more on your security suite for a more dedicated advice.

Good job until now.

Kees

It's the mcafee firewall. But I can't see how it doesn't work when I'm online, when offline it works fine.

The firewall is on wether I'm on the internet or off the internet, right? Maybe something in office 2003?

When I disconnect and do a crtl-c on the data then open excel and go to paste it into the document (crtl-v), the connection wizard pops up and asks me to connect (no option to work offline) I cancel and of course it doesn't work. However if I first open Internet explorer and first click 'work offline' select the data and then open the excel document and paste it in, it works.

I've got IE security setting high and I've tried checking and unchecking boxes in the custom area regarding active-x controls and enabling scripts but none really worked. I've loaded winword.exe /a so it loads without add-ons and I've disabled all add-ons in IE to see if that helped and it didn't.

I could try another firewall but I think the issue is when Word or Excel (office) detects that I'm online. What happens when I crtl-c crtl-v online as oppose to when I'm offline?

Disable McAfee. Check to see if Windows XP firewall is activated automatically. If not, do it yourself. Then you're protected for the moment when connected.

Then retry the copy and see the difference. If there really is one, as you expect, only McAfee can tell you why. You're choice is between
1. Accept it.
2. Dump McAfee and find a less interfering protection. There are very good alternatives.

Kees

I'll try it this evening if I get a chance and I'll let you know.

Both Mcafee and Norton keep working when disabled. So my only true test was to uninstall them and use the Windows firewall for the test.

When I've nailed them on this, the call to the support lines is rather sad. They never understand as you get script robots.

Bob

I have been searching about and found that MS office uses COM add-ins so I'll give that a shot as well. I'll check to see if any COM add-ins which are tied in to the registry. Article 555173 at microsoft.

Someone also mentioned somewhere else that if they open word/excel first then try the copy paste it works. My case may be different but I'll give that a shot (I'll load Word first then hook up to the internet).

Another mention was that the HTML option was not available in the paste special options and to add that into the registry. I'll check that as well.

I'm pretty sure windows firewall will work the exact same way as mcafee and if I add in a block to word and excel then I'm pretty sure the copy paste formatting of the page will not work.

I would like to know why word/excel copy-pastes html pages faster when I'm offline.