Forum Discussion
Excel 2016 & 2019 - Conditional Formatting Affecting Pasting with Formats
As of this week, I'm having a problem with conditional formatting preventing me from pasting copied cells with any paste options that include formatting. This issue is occurring on three Win 10 and 11 computers with Excel 2016 and/or Excel 2019.
For example, I can open a new excel workbook, input data into cells, format the cells and then copy and paste to new cells with the formatting pasted.
But if I add conditional formatting anywhere in the sheet, I cannot paste any cell (with or without the conditional formatting) when formatting is included in the paste option is included. For, example, I can paste-values, paste-formulas, but not regular paste or paste-formatting.
If I clear the conditional formatting from the sheet, the problem still exists. However, if I clear the conditional formatting from the sheet, save the file and then reopen it, the pasting of the formats gets restored.
A similar issue occurred a few windows updates ago and I rolled back the update for excel and/or applied the patch KB5002914. But this is a new issue and that patch doesn't work -- the message I receive is that "The update is already installed on this system".
Is this happening to anyone else?
Is there a solution to fix this behavior in excel with conditional formatting?
Thanks!
2 Replies
This resembles Microsoft's documented paste regression, including the conditional-formatting case, rather than an ordinary clipboard problem. Importantly, the current KB5002665 article now says the latest revision provides the complete fix; an earlier revision could still fail when conditional formatting existed. For each computer, first identify the exact Excel version, build, architecture and installation type. On Excel 2016 MSI, check the latest applicable KB5002665 package rather than trying to reinstall KB5002914, which is the security update associated with the original issue. Do not apply the Excel 2016 MSI installer to Office 2019 or Click-to-Run; those require their own applicable updates. Back up a sample workbook and retest ordinary paste after updating. Until then, use the documented Paste Special options that work for you. Avoid permanently deleting your formatting rules or removing security updates as the default workaround
I wanted to note I also applied the KB5002665 patch, but that doesn't help either...
