You're working on a document with tracked changes on—maybe you're reviewing a colleague's edits or your own. You highlight a sentence that has insertions and deletions marked, hit Ctrl+C, then Ctrl+V to paste it elsewhere in the same document or a different one. The moment you paste, Word freezes. The cursor spins, the title bar says "Not Responding," and you're stuck waiting for minutes or forced to kill Word and lose your unsaved work.
This happens a lot in Word 365 and Word 2019, especially when the copied range includes a mix of inserted and deleted text with formatting changes. It's not random—it's a known bug in how Word's internal paste handler deals with revision marks. The paste operation tries to rebuild the revision history for the pasted content, and when the markup is complex (multiple revisions overlapping), it gets tangled and hangs.
The real fix is to break the link between the copied text and its revision history. You have a few options, and I'll walk you through the one that works every time without losing your tracked changes in the original document.
Step-by-Step Fix
Start with this, because it's the least destructive and usually does the trick.
- Save your document first. Press Ctrl+S. If Word is already frozen, you'll need to force-quit and reopen, but if it's still responsive, save now.
- Turn off tracked changes. Go to the Review tab. In the Tracking group, click Track Changes to turn it off. The button should no longer be highlighted (in recent Word versions it's orange when on).
- Accept all changes in the source document. Still on the Review tab, click the drop-down arrow under Accept (in the Changes group) and choose Accept All Changes. Do this for the entire document, not just a selection. Word will process all revisions and remove the markup.
- Copy and paste now. Select the text you need, press Ctrl+C, then paste with Ctrl+V. It should work instantly because the text no longer carries revision marks.
- Undo the acceptance if you need the original markup. Press Ctrl+Z once or twice to undo the "Accept All Changes" step. This brings back the tracked changes in the original document. Your pasted copy stays clean, and Word won't hang because the paste operation already completed.
After step 2, you'll notice the Track Changes button is off—that's expected. After step 3, you'll see all insertions become solid text and deletions disappear. That's normal. Just proceed with the paste, then undo to restore the markup.
Alternative: Paste as Plain Text (if you're in a hurry)
Sometimes you don't need the formatting, and you just want the content. If you're short on time, skip the accept-all dance and do this:
- Copy the text (Ctrl+C) even if Word might hang—but it won't hang on copy, only on paste.
- Right-click where you want to paste, and under Paste Options, choose Keep Text Only (the icon with a clipboard and an 'A').
- This strips all formatting and revision marks, so Word doesn't try to process them. It's a quick workaround, but you lose your formatting, so use it only when you don't care.
Note: If your copied text has both inserted and deleted parts, "Keep Text Only" will paste the current state—meaning it includes inserted text and excludes deleted text, which is probably what you want anyway.
Why This Happens (the Geeky Reason)
Word stores tracked changes as a series of revision records attached to ranges. When you copy a range with revisions, it doesn't just copy the text—it copies the entire revision graph. On paste, Word tries to rebuild a consistent revision state for the new location. If the copied range has nested or overlapping revisions (like one insertion inside a deletion, or formatting changes that span multiple revisions), the rebuild logic gets stuck in a loop or tries to reference a parent revision that doesn't exist in the new context. That's the freeze.
Turning off track changes and accepting all changes resets that revision graph, so the paste operation has nothing to process. The undo restores the graph, but by then the paste is done and Word has already flushed the temporary data.
What to Check If It Still Fails
If you tried the accept-all method and Word still hangs on paste, here are the next things to look at:
- Check for add-ins. Word add-ins (especially PDF converters or reference managers) can interfere with paste. Go to File → Options → Add-ins. At the bottom, set Manage to COM Add-ins and click Go. Uncheck any third-party add-ins. Restart Word and try again. If it works, re-enable them one by one to find the culprit.
- Update Word. Microsoft fixed several paste-related bugs in recent updates. Go to File → Account → Update Options → Update Now. Install any pending updates and restart Word.
- Try a different paste method. Instead of Ctrl+V, use Edit → Paste Special → Unformatted Text (Windows) or Edit → Paste and Match Style (Mac). This bypasses the revision handler entirely.
- Repair your Office installation. Go to Control Panel → Programs and Features, right-click Microsoft Office, and choose Change → Quick Repair. If that doesn't work, do the Online Repair (takes longer but fixes more).
- Copy a smaller chunk. Sometimes the freeze is triggered by a huge selection with many revisions. Copy just one paragraph at a time and paste that. Not a permanent fix, but it unblocks you when you're under deadline.
The accept-all-and-undo method has worked for every tech I've trained, and I've seen this issue on hundreds of machines. It's the first thing I try, and it's the first thing you should try too. Don't waste time messing with settings or reinstalling—just accept all, paste, undo, and move on.
And if you're on a shared document, remember to turn Track Changes back on after you're done pasting, or your colleagues will wonder why their edits suddenly lost their highlights.