Wilfried -

In most situations opening Word - or any other program - with stuff in the clipboard shouldn't lose what's there. When programs open, though, they splatter new temp files all over the place, and if you're short of RAM and/or temp resources on the drive, the newly opened program may (try to) push something else out. The clip board is "expendable" first, since overwriting anything else might cause another program to dump.

that's the problem here, clearing temp internet files, running disk cleanup, and maybe a reboot (or two) might clear the problem - at least until stuff backs up again.

The other possibility that comes to mind is that no "target" for what to copy is selected. I'd assume that to "copy from DT" a portion of text has been selected/highlighted before the "copy" instruction(?). Hitting "C" before you get the Ctl key down can "unselect" the text you're trying to copy...

If the "Paste" option isn't there, it generally means there's nothing in the clipboard. Either it didn't get there to begin with, or it got dumped on the way to where you tried to paste it.

John