Cannot paste in excel

Disable the destination workbook’s legacy Shared Workbook feature before pasting from the other workbook.

Turn off legacy sharing

1. Ask everyone else to close the destination workbook and save their changes.
2. If its change history matters, preserve it first:
   • Select Review → Track Changes → Highlight Changes.
   • Set When to All.
   • Clear Who and Where.
   • Select List changes on a new sheet, then save or print that history.
3. Select Review → Share Workbook.
4. On the Editing tab, verify that only your name appears under Who has this workbook open now.
5. Clear Allow changes by more than one user at the same time, select OK, and accept the warning.
6. Save the workbook, close it, reopen it, and paste from the other workbook.

Removing active users can discard their unsaved work, so do not disconnect anyone until they have saved and closed the file. Microsoft identifies Shared Workbooks as an older feature with numerous unsupported operations and recommends modern co-authoring instead.^1^

If “Share Workbook” is missing

Newer Excel versions hide the legacy command:

1. Open File → Options → Quick Access Toolbar.
2. Under Choose commands from, select All Commands.
3. Select Share Workbook (Legacy) → Add → OK.
4. Use the new toolbar button and repeat the steps above.^2^

If the sharing checkbox is unavailable, return to Review, select Unprotect Shared Workbook, enter its password if prompted, and then disable sharing. Without the password, the workbook owner must perform this action.^1^

If the error continues after sharing is disabled

Ensure both files are open in the same Excel instance:

1. Close both workbooks and all Excel windows.
2. Start Excel once.
3. From that Excel window, use File → Open to open both files.
4. Retry the copy and paste.

Excel cannot use its full internal copy functionality between separate Excel instances, which can prevent formulas, values, formats, and other attributes from being pasted normally.^3^

For ongoing collaboration, store the workbook in OneDrive or SharePoint and use Microsoft 365 co-authoring rather than re-enabling the legacy Shared Workbook feature.^1^

References

1. About the shared workbook feature
2. Excel specifications and limits
3. You cannot paste any attributes into a workbook in another instance of Excel