There is a simpler way...Close Excel after you copy and it will ask you if you want to save the data on clipboard.
Click yes, and then you are able to paste with no problem

Excellent - it solved my problem in no minute - Thank you very much

Truly appreciated this post. I was going crazy trying to figure out what I had installed that might have broken Excel.
I use Excel and Access in combination on a regular basis for data-scrubbing... and this update effectively crippled my two most-used tools.

Thanks for making this an easy fix... ( albeit, a temporary work-around - as you mentioned - until Microsoft cleans up this glitch )

I usually have my system set to download updates and manually install them due to similar things having happened in the past - however, I had just started working on a new laptop and didn't have all the settings adjusted the way I like them yet. This one really caught me.... It interrupted some very critical work.

I found an easier way to work around this where you don't have to close Excel.

After you copy the data in excel, open the clipboard in Access and you can left click on the data you want to paste in the clipboard.

This worked for me on multiple occasions when users would get this problem.

Thanks Kari and Jason,

After Molly in our QA department verified your workarounds,
we've revised the page, www.fmsinc.com/.../Clipboard.html, and credited you with your suggestions.

Thank you very much for helping the Excel and Access community with your insight.

Hi Kevin,

Glad you found this article so useful. Thanks for sharing your experience. Yes, this drove me crazy too, so once I discovered the cause, I knew how important it was to share it with everyone.

The simplest workaround is in fact to use Paste Special/Text and the paste works fine. The security patch is only blocking pasting of Excel data into Access, not text.

Hi Glenn,

The problem isn't for copying one value but a whole grid of cells that are meant to become multiple records in Access. In those instances, Paste Special as text just tries to put it all into one Access field.

If you are copying rows of data you can use paste append from the edit menu of access.

I have a problem linking the tables of excel to access. The error message I am getting is The wizard is unable to access information in the file". Please check that the file exists and is in the correct format. It appears that this has to do with either sp2 or sp3. Does anyone know a work around for this?

Wow guys! Thanks a lot for this post. I've just uninstalled the MS update per your recommendation and we're back in business now.

This saved me a lot grief.

Randy

MS has an Access hotfix released on February 24, 2009 to fix the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967699/

Thanks Cheryl! The hotfix worked great.

After I installed the hotfix, my copy of Norton Internet Security 2009 stopped working ! Neither uninstalling the hotfix or re-installing Norton solved the problem. Had to re-image my PC. Norton Helpline said the hotfix was incompatible with their product - tough luck. That's a bummer !

Well I had uninstalled the KB958437 update and hid it as suggested here and today the same thing happened, I noticed that KB959997 had been installed and it does excatly the same thing as KB958437 so you will need to carry out the same procedure in terms of KB959997.

Wow.. One MS Issue to the next it seems. Thanks for this, it saved me a lot of hassle trying to figure it out. Was working perfectly fine on the computer that had 03 but not on the 07 box.

Microsoft recently released the SP2 version of Office 2007 which updates Excel and resolves this problem: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

I've been pasting into Notepad, then copying out of Notepad and pasting into Access. This works every time for me.

Does that work if you're copying multiple records and fields?

I downloaded the SP2 and the same error still exists. Is there something else I need to do to be able to paste data from Excel to Access? I copy/paste between these applications all day and using the paste from the clipboard all the time is time consuming.

I had the same experience as Rachel. I found I couldn't paste from Excel into Access, researched it, downloaded SP2 and when I ran it, was told that it was already installed. I tried pasting again and still got the clipboard error. Any ideas?

Hi

Like Rachael, I've got SP2 and the error using paste append is still occurring. It is very frustrating.

Cheers
Tony

Hi, i looked for the updates KB958437 & KB967699 and i didn't find them.
is there any other updates i should know about? and if not, what is the solution?

thanks,
rea.

Hotfix KB967699 is available from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967699/

Please let us know if this resolves the issue for you. Thanks!

Molly
FMS, Inc.

I need help with the same issue, but in Excel/Access 2003. Downloaded updates as populated in the add/remove programs module doesn't differentiate between Office applications. Can you suggest what patch I need to delete or hotfix I need to download to stop this problem from happening?

thanks so much!

I have encountered this error in Office 2003 as well. The issue cropped up for the first time just last week, and as of yet has not resolved itself. Happy to provide screenshots if desired.

I'm running XP on my work computer and I use Excel 2007 & Access 2007. I first found KB958437 months ago and my company's IT group kept that patch from updating. A month or so later, I had the same pasting problem. I have no KB959997 on my machine either. As others have stated above, the SP2 hotfix didn't work. I'm not comfortable adding it on my work computer, it's not mine to experiment.

There must be a better fix. I hope someone comes up with a solution.

Luke -- thanks for forwarding my question to Microsoft. We were able to determine an errant quotation mark in my dataset (an applicant of ours had included said punctuation as part of his name) was creating the problem.

I was having all these issues with no resolution also. The Excel sheet that I was trying to paste in was exported from the same Access program. I changed the "Data Type" Field Size of all the Text fields to the maximum I required (they all defaulted to 255). This resolved all my issues. Hope this helps someone in the future.

Sorry, forgot to add in my previous comment that the pasted version must be .xls....not .xlsx

I was so excited when I saw the workaround. But unfortunately none of the solutions work and I've tried as many variations on a theme as I could think of: saving the file as tab delineated; adding a column for the auto-number; everything sensible, and a lot not.

Still nothiing. All I can do is paste one row at a time. I hate the idea of uninstalling 2007 and going back to 2003 but may have to do that.

Yes -- or at least I think I do.
I think I have a work around. I'll post it once I'm certain that it works.

I am having the same issue in Excel 2007 in trying to paste into Access 2007. There are no updates in there now with the names that are specified above. However there is an update KB973593. Could that be doing the same thing?

I had installed the Service Pack 2 on both corp computers and today they both are throwing this error again out of the blue...I can't get the Service Pack to successfully re-install after several attempts.

You are saying it is possible that another Office or Windows update has recreated the issue?

I should just remove the installed updates themselves?

Thanks

This morning my typical routines copying Excel and pasting Access worked without issue, mostly .xls (97-2003) version to .mdb file using both Excel & Access 2007.

However when pasting into an .accdb Access 2007 database I was trying to use yesterday I have the same issue.

Just trying to help isolate the problem.

Luke, this entire thread was titled "Security Patch for Excel Prevents Pasting into Access Tables"

Prior to installing Service Pack 2 it was all data from Excel, and had been operating daily just fine until yesterday - perhaps a recent update blew out the Svc Pack fix?

Data did not originate in Access.

No problem - it may be that! How could I check or fix?

Not happenning for all data because this morning I performed certain copy Excel 97-2003 .xls and paste into an Access 97-2003 .mdb with no errors - again from within Office 2007.

Then I tried to perform a copy from .xlsx and paste to .accdb arriving at the error again that I was getting yesterday not realizing that it worked on the previous versions file types thinking it was the same issue coming back.

Certainly this is clear as mud...hopefully you can follow.