Q: Copy and Paste doesn't work properly on Yosemite

I have exactly the same problem: copy & paste from MS-Word to Mail.app does not work.

The same work around that was mentioned above also works for me:

copy & paste from MS-Word to TextEdit and then (with a new copy action) to Mail.app does work OK.

Copy & paste from MS-Word to other applications (not only TextEdit) seems to work.

The problem did show up with Yosemite, Mavericks Mail.app was a similar disaster as the Yosemite version, but this cut & paste bug has seemingly been introduced with Yosemite.

Since this thread has "only" a bit more than 1000 views, it seems that not many people transfer text from MS-Word to Mail.app. Or, people have stopped to expect Mail.app to work anyway and avoid using it.

It may help to report at http://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html - but for me the feedback form feels like a Black Hole.

I use this hack to convert the styled text on the pasteboard to un-styled text that can be pasted to/from Word with relatively few issues:

Open Terminal.app and this command:

     pbpaste | pbcopy

will perform the conversion. Leave Terminal open while working and thereafter up-arrow return will repeat the command conveniently.

There's probably a slicker way to this using Automator, but I always have Terminal open anyway so I haven't looked beyond this crude but effective method.

C.

Thanks for this post.  I didn't even know I had Text Edit, but it solved the problem.  Mail app was always leaving extra lines that couldn't be deleted, like double-spacing.  So now I copy and paste from Word to Text Edit to Mail.

I have the same problem when I copy and paste something in Safari to my mac mail. the mail gets sent out but never received by anyone. There usually is a link of a graphic involved in the copy. VERY FRUSTRATING! Any suggestions, Apple?

I too have been having problems with copying from Microsoft Word 2011 and pasting into Mail.app email messages. This is on Yosemite 10.10.5.

I'm not concerned about formatting, but the text that is pasted is incomplete. It typically contains the first and last parts but leaves out one or more chunks in the middle.

Here are a few more data points about the problem:

When I copy from a .docx file and paste to Mail, sometimes (not always!) part of the pasted text is missing.

If I go back to Word and do a 'Save As' of that document, and set the file type to Plain Text, Word strips the formatting and creates a new plain text document with extension .txt . At this point none of the text is missing from the new plain text file.

If I then copy a block of plain text from that txt document, which is open in Word, and then paste into Mail.app, the same text that was missing from the original example is ONCE AGAIN MISSING.

But if I close that txt document in Word, and open it instead in Apple's TextEdit app, and then I copy text from that txt doc and paste into Mail, NOTHING IS MISSING.

Thoughts?

I'm having a problem copy pasting URLS into an email- anyone have this problem? It's a right pita as I need to copy links to emails and have resorted to typing the entire link.  Not a fun or long term fix so am desperate to find a solution.

L

Thank you so much for this information!  I could not cut and paste from Safari to Mail; this solution worked!

The Apple C and then Apple V solution...

You can always do "File, Email page location" if it is a fresh email or use Apple C then Apple V to copy and paste the linke and that does the trick!!  (Thank you idorian : )

Reindexing Spotlight appears to have fixed this problem on my 2009 Mac Pro:

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

I have changed my email address to riordanmt@gmail.com.  Please update your records.