Copy & Paste not possible

User Support
1

We use the integrated Collabora Online in HiDrive Ionos.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to copy passages or words from text documents there. Copy and paste doesn’t work via the menu bar at the top, nor does it work using the standard copy and paste function.

We’ve also adjusted the relevant settings in Chrome, but that doesn’t help either.

So how can we enable copy and paste?

THANK YOU!

2

Hi @Meandmyself

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for the detailed description! :slightly_smiling_face:

What you’re describing is a well-known limitation with browser clipboard security, especially when Collabora Online is embedded in an iframe (which is how HiDrive integrates it). Let me explain what’s going on and what you can try:

Why this happens

Browsers (Chrome/Edge in particular) restrict access to the system clipboard for security reasons. When Collabora Online runs inside an iframe served from a different domain than the host page, the embedding page has to explicitly delegate clipboard permissions to the iframe (via the allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" attribute / Permissions-Policy headers). If the integration doesn’t do that, the menu-based Copy/Paste and the async clipboard API simply won’t work — no browser setting on your end can override it. That’s likely why adjusting the Chrome settings didn’t help.

What you can try right now

  1. Use keyboard shortcuts instead of the menu: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V usually still work even when the menu actions fail, because they go through a different (browser-native) code path. Give those a try first.
  2. Check your file permissions: if the file or folder is shared with you without download permission, Collabora intentionally disables copying content out of the document (you’d typically see a “copying is disabled” message when pasting elsewhere). If that matches your situation, ask the file owner to grant download rights.
  3. Try a different browser (e.g. Firefox) just to confirm whether it’s the Chromium clipboard API restriction — helpful data point for a support ticket.

The proper fix

If the shortcuts also fail and permissions are fine, then the clipboard delegation needs to be fixed in the HiDrive integration itself — that’s something only IONOS can do on their side. I’d recommend opening a ticket with IONOS support and mentioning that the Collabora Online iframe needs allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" (Permissions-Policy delegation) so that clipboard access works in Chromium-based browsers.

If you can share which browser + version you’re using and whether Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V works while the menu doesn’t, that would help narrow it down further.

Hope that helps! :slightly_smiling_face: