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"The information cannot be pasted because the copy area and the paste area are not the same size and shape"

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When trying to paste data into Excel, you may run across this error. The most likely cause is that you have selected a group of cells to copy and then when you want to paste, you have selected another group of cells that are not the same cell size. Usually you can get past this error by selecting only a single cell and pasting to that cell. The cell you selected will act as the top-left most cell in the pasted selection, or the top most cell if it's only a single column of data. However, there is another cause for this error that can be elusive.

Check to make sure that you have not grouped your sheets. There are a couple of ways to tell. First, ungrouped sheets are a different color than the selected, active sheet. In the screenshot below, notice the different color between Sheet1 and the other sheets.

In a grouped set of sheets, notice they are all the same color.

One other way to tell is to look to the top of your workbook. If you see [Group] beside the workbook name, then you know you have grouped sheets. You can't copy a single cell from a group of sheets and paste to a workbook cell with non grouped sheets. What Excel is trying to do is copy the cells you selected from not one workbook, but from all of the grouped workbooks, as if they were stacked. Then when you select a single cell in an ungrouped workbook, Excel determines that you are trying to paste the grouped cells into a single cell on a single worksheet and says "Nope, can't fit all of that there!" Imagine trying to fit a single stack of 100 folded towels into a small suitcase and close the lid. It would be impossible.

To group worksheets, select a worksheet and then hold the SHIFT key down and select another worksheet. You can also hold down the CTRL key to do a relative selection (you can pick and choose). When multiple sheets are selected in this manner, the sheets are automatically grouped and the [Group] warning appears at the top of the workbook. You can ungroup the sheets by selecting only one of the worksheets in a grouping and the rest will turn the darker color. You can also right click a group of selected sheets and left click the "Ungroup Sheets" option.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2013
    thanks a million........been screaming at this for an hour and then all I had to do was un-group the pages!!!!!!!!!!   Fell dumb but happy here at closing time!!

  • Anonymous
    February 19, 2013
    I am working on office migraion from Office 2003 to 2010. I am getting an similar issue as copy area and paste area are not the same size and shape. Please suggest me on recoding to existing as I am beginner. It should work in both office 2003 and Office 2010.  Thanks In advance. Sub OffExp() '    Sheets("Rep Exp").Select    Dim i As Integer    Dim j As Integer    Range("f1").Select    j = ActiveCell.Value    For i = 0 To j - 1    Range("f5").Select    ActiveCell.Offset(i, 0).Select    OffName = ActiveCell.Value    ActiveCell.Offset(0, 2).Select    OffSave = ActiveCell.Value    Workbooks.Open Filename:= _        "Q:COMMONMarketingFULTONRPTGFieldInc_ExpOffice_template.xls"    Sheets("Block").Visible = True    Sheets("Block").Select    Range("A2").Select    Workbooks.OpenText Filename:="E:actuEXP_" + OffName + ".txt", Origin:=437, _        StartRow:=1, DataType:=xlDelimited, TextQualifier:=xlDoubleQuote, _        ConsecutiveDelimiter:=False, Tab:=True, Semicolon:=False, Comma:=False _        , Space:=False, Other:=True, OtherChar:="~", FieldInfo:=Array(Array(1, 1 _        ), Array(2, 1), Array(3, 1), Array(4, 1), Array(5, 1), Array(6, 1), Array(7, 1), Array(8, 1), _        Array(9, 2), Array(10, 1), Array(11, 1), Array(12, 1), Array(13, 1), Array(14, 1), Array(15 _        , 1), Array(16, 1), Array(17, 1), Array(18, 1), Array(19, 1), Array(20, 1), Array(21, 1), _        Array(22, 1), Array(23, 1), Array(24, 1), Array(25, 1), Array(26, 1)), _        TrailingMinusNumbers:=True    Range("A2").Select    Firstcell = ActiveCell.Address    ActiveCell.Offset.End(xlDown).Select    Range(Firstcell, ActiveCell.Offset(0, 13)).Select    Selection.Copy    Windows("Office_template.XLS").Activate    Range("A2").Select    Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlValues, Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks:= _        False, Transpose:=False    Application.CutCopyMode = False    Windows("EXP_" + OffName + ".TXT").Activate    Range("o2").Select    Firstcell = ActiveCell.Address    ActiveCell.Offset.End(xlDown).Select    Range(Firstcell, ActiveCell.Offset(0, 2)).Select    Selection.Copy    Windows("Office_template.XLS").Activate    Range("q2").Select    Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteFormats, Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks:= _        False, Transpose:=False    Application.CutCopyMode = False

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2013
    You guys are awesome

  • Anonymous
    October 31, 2013
    One more thing to consider is if you are pasting more than the 65K lines into a .xls file it won't fit. Save as a .xlsm and you'll get 1 million lines that will fit what you need.

    • Anonymous
      August 21, 2016
      Bob!!!!! Thank you so much!!! That did the trick

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2014
    Thank you. I hadn't noticed the 'Group' setting and once removed I was able to copy and paste.

  • Anonymous
    March 31, 2014
    Brilliant! This would never have occurred to me in a million years!

  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2014
    in my case it turned out that the excel file version that I was working with caused the problem. I tried saving the file to the latest version. After that I had to (of course!) close and open excel once again, and then the copy paste started working with that file. There is no help resource to guide the user through such obtacles using these kind of makeshift manouvres and work-arounds. If automobiles were manufactured with this quality, the manufacturers would be in jail.

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2014
    Thank you so much... this was so very helpful!

  • Anonymous
    April 25, 2014
    "Andy, thank you so much. The different excel versions was my issue as well!

  • Anonymous
    April 30, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 28, 2014
    THANK YOU!!!!

  • Anonymous
    October 24, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 10, 2014
    Thanks a lot. I would never have found this out. Saved my day...Thanks again.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2014
    your answers helps me resolve my problem. Thanks a lot!!

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2016
    Paste special is not working under filter valueSo remove filter and try again it will work.

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2016
    Paste special is not working in filter valueso remove all filter then use paste special.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2016
    This was happening to me and the easy fix was to close and reopen the spreadsheet I wanted to paste into.

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2017
    Also make sure you are not filtering out any lines when the column or row is selected. If you need to hide them then paste your formula as values and unhide.