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Participant
January 31, 2013
Answered

Cannot copy and paste text into Photoshop CS6

  • January 31, 2013
  • 17 replies
  • 46692 views

I am not able to copy and paste text from non-Adobe programs (like Keynote or Word) into Photoshop CS6. I get an error message reading "Could not complete the Paste Text command because the clipboard data is empty or invalid." I have tried shutting down Photoshop, shutting down other programs, re-starting my computer, adjusting my Preferences and asking Adobe for help by phone and chat. I am on a new iMac and have no third party plug-ins installed. Can anyone help?

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Correct answer petez2

Photoshop for some reason sometimes does not like the formatting of the text in the clipboard. Paste the copy into Text Edit or something similar and convert it to Plain Text. Copy that into the clipboard and it should paste fine into Photoshop.

17 replies

Participant
April 26, 2015

Same Problem here - still. Recognized this since the last PS CC Update. Before it worked fine.

I can't copy paste from mails in PS. It works when I put the text in the Subject Form Field and than copy it out from there. Stupid.

I hope they'll fix it with one of the hext updates. It's really annoying.

Participant
March 18, 2015

Same problem here. Text Edit detour is NO SOLUTION. Even spent almost 1 hour in Support Chat – they said it's not even a known bug at Adobe – though the web's forums are full with it. They'd let me reset preferences, even restart with new admin user and safe mode – though it was clear from the beginning it would not help. Very disappointed here b/c they don't even admit it's a bug in a pricy app. Adobe, get on with it! Solve it – it is such a basic task!!!

Participant
April 24, 2015

We experienced a similar problem at our web service company. Our designer is working with a mac running the latest OS Yosemite. She got trouble with pasting text from the browser into Photoshop (with the same error message).

When it comes to pasting text from a website into Photoshop, we figured out that it only affects Safari. We tried to copy and paste text from the same website but with Firefox and it worked.

Greetings~

Participating Frequently
February 23, 2015

Same issue here, working with CS6 on Yosemite.

Participant
October 29, 2014

Yesterday i update Yosemite and Adobe Photoshop CS6

i found error text message like you everytime when i used fontAwesome on Adobe Photoshop CS6 and then i found out to fix this problems Yeahh…

Try My Way to fix it out

-> copy The Text you want to use

-> paste your text (from your clipboard) To App TextEdit

-> then Copy again

-> back to Photoshop paste it on your document layout

-> Done

Participant
January 29, 2015

I just tried the text edit trick but It doesn't work for me... I have the same error message : " Could not complete the Paste Text command because the clipboard data is empty or invalid. "

We have to find a solution to this huge problem.

Participant
January 29, 2015

Solved it this way :

- Copy in Text edit

- Select the text

- Text edit  > Format > Convert to plain text

- Copy and Paste in Photoshop

Participant
June 27, 2013

crw1381,

Did you figure out what the problem was?  At work we use openoffice for docs sent to us by the copywritter.  I used to be able to copy and paste from openoffice and also from word docs straight into photoshop and indesign.  We just downloaded the new Creative Cloud Suite and now i get this same error only SOMETIMES when I try to copy something from openoffice (.doc) files into both InDesign CC and Photoshop CC...  Note that it's only sometimes, not all the times.  I wonder what the problem might be.  Please let me know if you figure it out.

The error states:

"Could not complete the Paste Text command because the clipboard data is empty or invalid."

Thank you.

MW

petez2Correct answer
Participant
January 30, 2014

Photoshop for some reason sometimes does not like the formatting of the text in the clipboard. Paste the copy into Text Edit or something similar and convert it to Plain Text. Copy that into the clipboard and it should paste fine into Photoshop.

buffsters
Participating Frequently
March 16, 2017

This is a time consuming work around. This is a bug either on Apple's end or Adobe's end. You guys need to figure this out. It works for now for me to copy from my Notes app to Word, then copy and paste from there, but this is an annoyance that should be eliminated.

January 31, 2013

Did you reset the preferences?  Start PS and hold down cmd option and shift keys.  You will get a reset window.

Can you copy and paste from Word to other programs?

Are all the operations on the same internal drive?

January 31, 2013

I have never tried to do this before but fired up Word and was able to paste text in. Since the button is not greyed out in PS (you get an error message rather than the inability to click paste button), and given the error message, it seems more like a clipboard problem than a PS problem. So, can you paste from Adobe programs into Photoshop? And can you paste no problem outside of Photoshop? Wish I could be more immediately helpful but I think you really have to make sure that this is a Photoshop problem.