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VWP424's avatar
VWP424
Helpful | Level 5
5 years ago

Copy box does not appear when text highlighted on Android

When I highlight text in a document on my new Samsung Galaxy S10 the box that would allow me to select copy does not appear.  It appears with other apps and it appears with the Dropbox app on my old iPhone 6.  I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, though I probably already had the latest version of the Dropbox app since the phone is new.  No change.  Help!!

  • I got the answer from Margaret at Dropbox Support.  When you highlight the text it doesn't bring up the box above the text that gives you the option to copy the text.  Instead it puts an icon in the upper right corner of the screen that shows a square in front of another square.  If you touch that, it copies the text to the clipboard.  I found that on .xls and .xls documents it brings up the box above the text while on .doc, .docx, and .pdf files it gives you the icon at the top of the screen.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hi VWP424, thanks for posting on the Community!

    Regarding the issue you’re experiencing, could you clarify if this is when previewing a document via the mobile app, or when opening that doc in its native app (like a Word doc).

    Are you instead referring to a Paper document? Any details you can provide would help greatly!

    • VWP424's avatar
      VWP424
      Helpful | Level 5
      I have documents that I've uploaded to Dropbox from my computer. If I open the Dropbox app and touch the filename in the Docs list it opens the file. I then want to copy a piece of text out of the document to use in another app. For example I might have an account number that I might want to copy into an app that accepts a paste into the account number field. I could do that on my iPhone 6 but on the Samsung it doesn't bring up the copy box. The documents are .doc or .docx files but it looks to me as if Dropbox is just opening them as text files.
      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        I just tested it on our Android device, and holding my finger on the screen allows to me select text while the docx file is previewed in the Dropbox app.

        If you do the same, what happens on your device?

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