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Can't copy and paste iPhone images from Dropbox to a Word document

We have started having issues with iPhone images not be able to be copy and pasted into word documents, you can only drag and click them which is slow and painful and not practical.

We do not have this issue with our Android images only Apple images.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers Blair.

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Jay

There are automatic file renamers available for Windows. Most likely there is an incompatible character in the filename, perhaps the comma, or the spaces.

You could even use the Dropbox automation to rename the files on the site itself so when it syncs to the computer the name is slightly different, and seeing if that helps out.

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Jay

Hi @Blair Roof Inspector, thanks for posting today!

Could you clarify the exact steps and devices you're currently using to understand what your process is?

This will help me to assist further!

Blair Roof Inspector

Hi Jay,

We take images of roof areas and download them to dropbox with our phones and then we copy and paste them into reports.

I have no issues with my Samsung phone and images, but I have 2 inspectors that run iPhones and both of them are having issues with not being able to copy and paste their images into word documents. When they are copied to a word doc they come out as a small blank square instead of the actual image. We seem to be able to drag them into the word doc and that works but no via copy and paste, this may not be a dropbox issue but more of a word doc issue with the recent updates.

Cheers Blair.

Jay

Could you clarify how you originally copy the photo in order to then paste it into Word?

Is the copying done via the Dropbox mobile app, or another app on the devices?

Blair Roof Inspector

Through dropbox file folder

Jay

So, is this in the Dropbox mobile app, or the iOS Files app when the Dropbox location is selected?

Blair Roof Inspector

Not using the apps at all this is being down directly from Dropbox file folder.

I have found previously that the app is not as responsive and going through the PC file folder to be more efficient.

Jay

I'm a little confused, you mentioned they were doing the copying and pasting from iPhones into Word.

How do they have access to the Dropbox folder on a PC from their iPhone?

Blair Roof Inspector

Images from the iPhone are uploaded through the app on phones, word documents are created on computers.

Jay

Okay, so, to put it simply, images from mobile devices are synced to Dropbox, and the images are copied and pasted on a desktop machine into Word.

Since these are iOS devices, are the images being uploaded as JPG or HEIC images?

Blair Roof Inspector

JPG

Jay

Do the images preview normally when you open them on the computer?

Could you attach a screenshot showing what you're seeing in Explorer, and then the subsequent image in Word?

Blair Roof Inspector

It will copy and paste from the first image of the file, but when images are open and we are scrolling we only get the square as shown in the second image.

Hope that makes sense.

Jay

Interesting, it could potentially be an encoding issue, in that Word can't process the image somehow, or some other small difference in the photos from those phones affecting how it's copied into Word.

Could you try renaming one of the images to just test.jpg and see if that file attaches to a Word file?

Blair Roof Inspector

Wow that actually worked. how would we rename hundreds and hundreds of these JPG's on a daily basis though?

Blair Roof Inspector

ok I have worked that out and don't need a response.

Thanks Jay , really appreciate the help.

Cheers Blair.

Jay

There are automatic file renamers available for Windows. Most likely there is an incompatible character in the filename, perhaps the comma, or the spaces.

You could even use the Dropbox automation to rename the files on the site itself so when it syncs to the computer the name is slightly different, and seeing if that helps out.

Kkang8

Hi I am experiencing a similar problem, when i try to drag images to word it just comes up with a link in writing instead of the actual image. I tried changing the name to test.jpg but it did not make a difference, can you assist?

Walter

Hey @Kkang8 - sorry to hear about this.

Can you please clarify what you'd like to accomplish and send us a couple of screenshots so that we can have a visual too?

If you could also clarify your device's OS, I'd appreciate it.