Moving dotted line not going away

drazen1

New Member
Joined
May 11, 2016
Messages
8
I couldn't seem to find another thread (or any mention of this elsewhere online) of this, so I apologize if this has been covered before.

I have recently begun having an annoyance (I would say issue, but it doesn't really affect anything) using Excel. When you copy a cell or cells, there is a moving dotted line that runs around the outside of those copied cells. Typically, if you double-click a cell or cells away from this, that should go away. This is no longer the case for me. I can do any number of other operations, clicks, etc. Until I select and copy another cell or group of cells, that marquee keeps running around those cells I copied. It is quite annoying.

Any thoughts on how to resolve this?
 

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Re: Excel - Moving dotted line not going away

Pressing the escape key will do it.
 
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Re: Excel - Moving dotted line not going away

Thanks. Sorry for the delay on the thanks - for some reason, I never got the email notification that there was any reply to this.
 
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Re: Excel - Moving dotted line not going away

Let me provide some backstory on this. The behavior changed for Office 365 customers starting in June 2017. Acting in response to this request on Excel.UserVoice, the Excel team changed what events will cause the clipboard to be emptied.

While this request seemed really innocuous, it has caused a lot of issues for people who routinely use Excel shortcuts. I still use the Excel 2003 Alt+I E <enter> to insert cells, but now the clipboard is hanging around longer and that same command does Insert Copied Cells. This is not an issue if you use the new style keyboard shortcuts: Alt, H, I, E or Alt, H, I, I. But for the old style shortcuts, it causes a problem.

Thanks to Steve the Fish for the easy-to-remember Esc key to clear the clipboard. You can also take advantage of these:
Ctrl+C to copy
Ctrl+V to paste and keep the contents on the clipboard, or
Enter to paste and clear the clipboard

I am trying to train myself to use Enter when I don't need to do multiple pastes, but when I forget, pressing Esc will clear it.
 
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