Paste into Microsoft Publisher

The Problem: Microsoft Publisher (at least up to the 2000 version) has a bug that prevents pasting anything other than plain text into a text box - especially from Microsoft Outlook.

It's a real pain when you are assembling a newsletter from received e-mails.

The error message reads:

"The Clipboard is busy.
Publisher can not currently cut, copy or paste your data because your program is using the Clipboard. Please wait a moment and try again, or close other programs and try again."

The Fix: Open the e-mail is its own small window, and position that window over your Publisher Document. Mark the section that you want to copy and click-hold-drag that section onto the Publisher Document and drop it there. If you drop into a text box, the text will end up there. If you drop outside of a text box, a box will be created for you.

I have also seen the copy-paste problem disappear after doing a single drag-drop operation!