Excel.Range.PasteSpecial throws COMException

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Why does the following simple code throw an exception in the last line and what can I do against it?

Clipboard.SetData(DataFormats.Text, "<Script");

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application oApplication = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
oApplication.Visible = true;

Workbooks oWorkbooks = oApplication.Workbooks;

System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US");
Workbook oWorkbook = oWorkbooks.Add();

Worksheet rWorksheet = (Worksheet)oWorkbook.ActiveSheet;

Range rRange = rWorksheet.Range[rWorksheet.Cells[1, 1], rWorksheet.Cells[1, 1]];
rRange.PasteSpecial(XlPasteType.xlPasteValues);

Edit: A COMException with Message "PasteSpecial method of Range class failed", HResult 0x800A03EC and HelpLink "xlmain11.chm" is being thrown.

Posted 15-Jan-16 0:24am

Member 2654753

Updated 17-Jan-16 19:04pm

v3

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Jochen Arndt 15-Jan-16 6:47am

Is there no error message text provided by the exception?
If so, you should add it to your question.

Member 2654753 18-Jan-16 1:08am

Sorry, added info about the exception.

Maciej Los 15-Jan-16 17:35pm

What's error message?

Jochen Arndt 18-Jan-16 3:39am

This may be sourced by many reasons where the ones listed below did not seem to apply in your case. But you may check them:
- There is nothing on the clipboard.
- The amount of text to be pasted is too large (depending on the Excel version the limit is somewhere between 6 and 10 KB).
- The range is invalid.
- The cell has a data format set and the pasted data can't be converted to that format.
- The sheet or workbook is protected.
- And many others reasons.

Especially a variation of the data format may apply here because your text begins with < which may be interpreted as formula by Excel but it is an invalid one. You might check this by pasting other text.

Member 2654753 18-Jan-16 7:11am

Thanks for your reply. While the reasons 1-3 and 5 do not seem to apply, it may have to do something with formats, since using XlPasteType.xlPasteAll instead of XlPasteType.xlPasteValues throws no exception.

Pasting with XlPasteType.xlPasteAll sets the rRange.NumberFormat to "General", but pasting with XlPasteType.xlPasteValues fails even if I explicitly set the NumberFormat to "General" before the paste (which is not surprising, because "General" seems to be the standard). So I am still lost.

Background: If I have the text "<Script" in the clipboard, I cannot even manually paste this text into excel without first entering the cell-mode (i.e. without first pressing F2). I was hoping to convince excel by setting the NumberFormat to "Text" ("@") and then pasting with XlPasteType.xlPasteValues so that the NumberFormat stays "Text". But pasting with XlPasteType.xlPasteValues always seems to fail, even with text like "abc" in the clipboard.

Jochen Arndt 18-Jan-16 7:25am

So the reason seems to be found.

But why using XlPasteType.xlPasteAll is not an option?
If necessary you can try to change the format aftwerwards (which might fail too).

Member 2654753 18-Jan-16 8:29am

XlPasteType.xlPasteAll is no option because a text like "<script" does not appear in excel (just like it does not appear if I try to paste the text manually without entering the cell-mode), probably because excel tries to parse the text as html and fails doing so. Changing the format back to "Text" does not fail but it dos not help either: the cell remains empty.

Jochen Arndt 18-Jan-16 8:37am

Then I have only one last idea by prefixing the text with an apostrophe:
"'<Script"
This indicates that the content should be treated as text but will copy the apostrophe too.

Member 2654753 18-Jan-16 8:55am

That is kind of the workaround I use at the time: I replace the '<'-character with a UUID, paste into excel and replace the UUID back with '<'. Awkward. And not really safe because I do not know if there are other characters or combination of characters that excel does not paste.

I thank you very much!

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