# Microsoft Works copy-and-paste **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 3, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327 "2015-10-03T02:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/1 "2015-10-03T02:21:58Z")
[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18737088&postcount=52](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18737088&postcount=52) Can anyone explain to me why every attempt at doing a copy-and-paste of that post, or of the Reddit post to which it links, causes Microsoft Works to crash as soon as I hit Control-V? ---
**Author:** ![Postariti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Postariti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Postariti)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/2 "2015-10-03T05:37:40Z")
Here’s a guess, based on my experiences with MS Works. There is a strange invisible character somewhere in the text. Try pasting the text to Notepad, then copying it from there. I didn’t have any trouble copying that post into MS Works, but we probably have different versions. The problem I get when cutting and pasting is an error that says I’m out of memory because what I’m trying to paste is too long. This is annoying but funny when it’s only a few words. Putting it in Notepad first fixes my problem, I hope it helps you. ---
**Author:** ![Iron\_Wine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5e925/32.png) [@Iron\_Wine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iron_Wine)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/3 "2015-10-03T06:16:31Z")
> [@Postariti](#): > > Here’s a guess, based on my experiences with MS Works. There is a strange invisible character somewhere in the text. Try pasting the text to Notepad, then copying it from there. This is pretty solid advice for copy-pasting anything. Notepad is like a universal text equalizer. It’s beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/4 "2015-10-03T06:22:29Z")
Why on earth are you using Microsoft Works? There are free word processing and spreadsheet programs available, e.g., [https://www.openoffice.org/download/](https://www.openoffice.org/download/) or the Google Drive suite. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2015, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/5 "2015-10-03T10:20:43Z")
> [@araminty](#): > > Why on earth are you using Microsoft Works? There are free word processing and spreadsheet programs available, e.g., [Apache OpenOffice - Official Download](https://www.openoffice.org/download/) or the Google Drive suite. It came with the computer, and I use it so seldom I haven’t had any reason to look for something better. After almost five years of using this computer, I only have about 20 documents saved, and most of those are just lists. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2015, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/6 "2015-10-04T13:44:35Z")
> [@Postariti](#): > > Try pasting the text to Notepad, then copying it from there. That worked. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2015, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-works-copy-and-paste/733327/7 "2015-10-05T09:36:02Z")
If you don’t need anything special, you might as well use Wordpad.