# Why can't I copy, save, and print?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 28, 2006, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493 "2006-09-28T15:11:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Diamonds02](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diamonds02)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2006, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/1 "2006-09-28T15:11:23Z")
I was copying and pasting somethings from a website to microsoft word. All the sudden I could not copy, in fact, when I right clicked on the highlighted text, the box didn’t even pop up. Because of this, I went to save whatever I had on MW, and the program would not let me save. Instead, it just gave me that horn noise. Same thing with printing.
What happend?
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/2 "2006-09-28T16:41:34Z")
Some websites purposely capture right mouse clicks to limit people’s ability to copy and paste their work. It’s usually done with images, but it could also be done with text.
Could you still cut-n-paste with other websites?
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### Author:  [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/3 "2006-09-29T05:38:24Z")
Try this. From the webpage, select the desired text. Copy to clipboard (Ctrl-C). Switch to the Word document. Insert - PasteSpecial (unformatted). I’ve yet to run into a situation where this didn’t work.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/4 "2006-09-29T16:38:52Z")
Or this. Hit your Print Screen button. Then open Photo Editor, and Paste as New Image. If you want editable text, use some OCR on this image. I don’t think there’s any way to protect something you can see on your screen from the Print Screen button.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2006, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/5 "2006-09-29T20:03:02Z")
If you have Firefox with the correct extension installed, it is easy to disable any Javascript preventing you from the right-click copy/paste. At the same time you can just save the page as a file to your computer (and reopen it in Word). Caputuring as a screen image as suggested by **Napier** is viable, but it requires OCR work.
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### Author:  [@The\_Laughing\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Laughing_Man)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2006, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/6 "2006-09-30T00:22:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I don’t think there’s any way to protect something you can see on your screen from the Print Screen button.
Anything played through almost any media player, I.e DVD discs will not work when Print Screened and then pasted.
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### Author:  [@Diamonds02](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diamonds02)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-cant-i-copy-save-and-print/374493/7 "2006-09-30T00:29:26Z")
I shut off my computer and restarted it. The functions are back to normal now. I don’t know what happened.