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How do I keep excel from downloading pictures when I copy and paste? It is slowing me down tremendously. Is there a way to set excel to not download pictures?

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And how is this related to programming which is what this site is meant for? – darin Dec 18 '10 at 16:53
There, that is better, I suppose. – Arlen Beiler Dec 18 '10 at 16:55
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Are you sure you mean "downloading"? When you paste something into Excel, and it includes pictures, they come from a temporary folder on your PC. But that takes ages, I know. If you only need text and numbers in your table, you can do this: in Excel, click on the little arrow next to the Paste button, select "paste special", and pick "Text". That way, only plain letters and numbers will be pasted into your cells: no formatting, no pictures, no links. It will be nearly instant. At least this is the way it works in my version of Excel. I don't think there is anything else you could do.

Edit: as an Autohotkey script:

#IfWinactive, Microsoft Excel  ; you might need a different window title for a newer version of Excel, I have no way of testing
!^v::Sendinput !es{down}{enter}  ; again, you might need different input for a different version
#IfWinactive

After SendInput comes what would need to type by hand if you wanted to do the same by hand. I type alt+e ("!e"), then s, then press the down arrow, then press enter. Change it according as your version of Excel needs different key presses. The hotkey that triggers it all I set to alt+control+V ("!^v"), but you can change that.

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Could you give me a VBA example? I can use a different shortcut key for pasting. – Arlen Beiler Dec 18 '10 at 21:22
Does that stand for Visual Basic? I have no idea how that works. You could easily make a script in Autohotkey: [code] #IfWinactive, Excel !^v::Sendinput !es{down}{enter} #IfWinactive [/code] Ugh I can't make returns. There need to be returns after Excel and after {enter}. The "code" parts are just to show you where the code begins, they should not be actually in the code themselves. – Cerberus Dec 19 '10 at 1:42
You might need a different identifier for Excel: [code] #Ifwinactive, Microsoft Excel [/code] might work better. For clarity's sake: the above script carries out a text paste when you press alt+control+V. I tested it in my Excel (2003): it could work differently for your version; then you need to change the letters that Sendinput will type in my code. – Cerberus Dec 19 '10 at 1:50
Use ` to mark it out. – Arlen Beiler Dec 20 '10 at 13:44
VBA is Visual Basic for Applications. It is the scripting language in excel. – Arlen Beiler Dec 20 '10 at 13:45
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