How Do I Fix the MS-Office Clipboard on a Mac?

If you use MS-Office on a Mac, chances are you’ll discover Cmd-X stops working. PowerPoint seems to do it almost every time I use it. I’m not quite sure why this happens, but it’s clear PowerPoint does not know how to deal whatever is on the clipboard. This usually happens when I use a non-MS-Office application and copy something to the clipboard before using PowerPoint.

It’s possible to clear out the Mac clipboard, afterward PowerPoint will work properly. The simplest way to clear the clipboard on a Mac is to use the pbcopy command.

When Cmd-X stops working in PowerPoint, open a Terminal (I always use Spotlight, the shortcut is Cmd-Space, enter Terminal in the search bar). Then enter the following pbcopy command:

This looks rather innocuous. What is does is provide no input to the pbcopy command, thereby clearing the clipboard.

This method isn’t 100% reliable, but works most of the time.

Originally published at https://focusedforsuccess.com on August 10, 2020.