I found M8 free clipboard that works well. Why was excel designed this
way? Is there a purpose in clearing the clipboard right away?

John

Bernard Liengme wrote:
This is an Excel behavior: the clipboard hold the copied stuff only
while the ants are running around the selection. The clipboard is
emptied if you do anything before pasting; that includes closing the
source file.
If you have the right Excel version, try using Office Clipboard rather
than Windows Clipboard. In XL2003 find Office Clipboard in Edit menu.

I did a copy, closeed the source file and pasted to a second Excel file
from Office Clipboard
I cannot experiment with Word2003 since I use Word2007 and it would take
hours (I exaggerate! but not much) to open the other version
best wishes