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bh126's avatar
bh126
Copper Contributor
Sep 11, 2020

popup windows are inactive

using office 365/excel 2016: starting several weeks ago, excel's popup windows are inactive until I click on them with the mouse. Key shortcuts for paste special, for example, don't work until I clic...
excel
AlanOdom's avatar
AlanOdom
Copper Contributor
Sep 16, 2020

bh126 - This began near the beginning of August for nearly everyone (~15 people) in my company about the same time.  Excel is inconsistent with regards to menus that you activate using keyboard shortcuts. For example, you "control copy" something and want to paste it as values via "Alt E, S, V". Sometimes it works because the small window that pops up IS active, but other times it does not because the small window menu IS NOT active. This issue is occurring with all small menu windows (e.g. “Alt E, F” to Find, “Alt D, S” to sort data, “Alt I, F” to insert a formula).

My I/T department set up a screen share with our Microsoft rep, but he could not help us. He said he would escalate it, but I have not heard anything for a week.

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-prompt-windows-are-not-selected-when-they/95556cea-ac73-405a-a7e7-0b79ea40806d

 

bh126's avatar
bh126
Copper Contributor
Sep 16, 2020

AlanOdom - thank you for the reply! I thought it might just be me. I've tried to avoid the issue by learning some of the newer key shortcuts but when I'm stuck with the inactive popup window, alt+tab often re-activates it for me. Extra keystrokes for sure, but still beats grabbing the mouse.

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