Best way I can explain it is this. Office has it's own clipboard, that's
what Excel uses. If third party applications/add-ins are used the
Windows clipboard contents doesn't always get transferred to the Office
clipboard. So you have the option of removing the offending
application/addin, OR keeping an Office application always open to have
the Office clipboard always the target of the "copy".

Jessica P wrote:

If I have text in my clipboard, and I open up Excel (either to paste it into
Excel or to check numbers ofr something else), Excel clears out my clipboard.
Why does it do this, and how can I make it stop? It's extremely inconvenient
and annoying.

Is this Microsoft's way of telling me to never ever close Excel?

(For the record, I'm using Excel 2002 in WinXP Professional)