Clipboard Manager corrupts fields & tables in MS Word

macOS 13.7, BTT 4.765, Microsoft Word 16.86 (at least) thru 16.89.1.

I noticed recently that when copying and pasting cross-reference fields in Word they are pasted as errors: "Error! Reference source not found." Although they can be refreshed, the bold formatting of the error persists so it is too annoying – BTT Clipboard Manager has to be disabled for Word now.

Similarly, pasting rows within tables messes up the table layout if the Clipboard Manager is enabled.

do you maybe have it set to „plain text“ as paste format?

No: BTT set to "Standard (with format)". The fields are pasted as fields, just Word sees them as broken in the process.

I thought I'd give this another test in 5.05. What I have established is that both problems persist if you simply cmd-C then cmd-V in Word. However, if you cmd-C then summon the Clipboard Manager and cmd-1 instead of cmd-V then the issue does not occur.

It's a bit more fiddly with tables, but with cross-references you can see that if you cmd-C then cmd-V the Clipboard Manager has two entries for the copied text: the act of pasting with cmd-V seems to create a second corrupted version. If this has happened then cmd-2 will paste the intact version…

Thank you for removing the images from items copied from Word and Excel by the way! (Show more metadata for items in clipboard manager - #4 by rickogorman)

Could you maybe attach a basic sample word file where I can test this? (I'm not using Word a lot :sweat_smile: )

BTT Demo.zip (29.2 KB)
Hope this helps.

I see. That is very non-standard behavior of Word. I'll try to file a bug with Microsoft about this.

The problem is that even just reading/accessing some data types word provides to the clipboard, causes functions to be triggered inside of word.
I will add some code to skip these, that should prevent the issue - however it means that the clipboard manager can't have a 1:1 copy of the stuff copied from word (probably won't matter in real world scenarios)

One question: does this work for you if you quit BTT? (I get the issue when doing cmd+c and cmd+v as well, but even when BTT is not running - it seems like maybe some other app on my system might be interfering)

No, I don't see the issue if BTT is quit. I also don't see the issue if I use the BTT functionality to disable Clipboard Manager for just Word (which is how I've been working for years).

I think I found the app that was causing it for me :slight_smile: (seems like there are many Mac apps that will cause this, because it's very unexpected behavior)

I added some workarounds in v5.06 (uploading now). Make sure this option is NOT checked:

I got 5.066 this morning, and that has fixed this specific issue: thank you.

I still have problems with tables, but they are much harder to demonstrate. The attached might show the issue… I don't often have to copy rows within tables, so a workaround would be a way of temporarily disabling the Clipboard Manager for Word via a shortcut – but I can't see a way to do that?

BTT Demo 2.zip (22.1 KB)

I think I can't reproduce the issue here, but in general table copy behavior seems to be weird in Word.

You are right the disable/enable actions have been removed from the UI accidentally. For now you can import this
enable_disable_clipboard.bttpreset (7.6 KB)

It will add a keyboard shortcut (cmd+opt+ctrl+d, you can modify that) to disable/enable the clipboard observation. I'll add the actions back with the next versions.