How to Access and Use the Clipboard in Microsoft Office

Quick Tips

• If you have any Microsoft Office apps (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) on your PC, you can make the best of this clipboard.
• Open any Microsoft Office app > Click the Home tab > Look for the Clipboard group > Click the dialog box launcher (downwards arrow).
• Select the text you want to copy > Press Control + C > Open the Office app > Clipboard Group > Downward arrow to see your copied text.

How to Access and Use the Office Clipboard

Using the Office Clipboard, you can save texts from an email, data from a spreadsheet, and even graphics from an online source.  When you open the clipboard on any Office product, it appears as a task pane. For illustrative purposes, we will be using Microsoft Word. However, you can easily replicate the steps on other Office products.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word.

Step 2: On the Microsoft Office Ribbon, click on the Home tab.

Step 3: On the Home tab, look for the Clipboard group and then click the dialog box launcher (downwards arrow) beside it to open the Clipboard task pane.

The clipboard task pane will open blank if you haven’t copied any items. So, when you copy items, the Clipboard task pane should fill up until it contains its maximum 24 items.

How to Copy and Paste Items on the Office Clipboard

To fill up the Office Clipboard, you can copy and cut items to reflect on it. To do so, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Open the document containing the item to be copied.

Step 2: Highlight the content you want to copy.

Step 3: Right-click the highlighted content and then select Copy. You can also press Control + C.

Step 4: Click the Home tab in the Microsoft Office app.

Step 5: In the Home tab, look for the Clipboard group and then click the dialog box launcher beside it to open the Clipboard task pane.

Step 6: Check the Clipboard task pane for the item copied.

Without having to paste the item yourself,  you should see that the copied item is already on your Office Clipboard.

Step 7: To paste the copied items on an Office product, click any of the items as shown on the Clipboard task pane. To paste all copied items at a go, click Paste All.

Tip: Check out our post if you can’t select or highlight text in Microsoft Word.

How to Delete Items From the Office Clipboard

As you copy items, the Office Clipboard gradually stores them until it reaches its limit of 24 items. When this happens, the clipboard can no longer save your items. To clear up space, you will need to delete items from the Office Clipboard. Here’s how to do so:

Step 1: On the Microsoft Word Ribbon > Home tab > Dialog box launcher.

Step 2: Check the Clipboard task pane for all items copied.

Step 3: To delete just one item from the Clipboard, hover your cursor and then click the drop-down beside it.

Step 4: Click the Delete option from the drop-down.

Step 5: To delete all the Clipboard items, click Clear All at the top of the Clipboard task pane.

Tip: To view previously copied items, you will need to view your Windows Clipboard History.