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I am new to ArcGis and I am currently taking a course. In one of the exercises Im supposed to copy a dataframe from the table of contents in ArcMap ( in data view) back into the table of contents so there are two copies. I am supposed to right click on the data frame name, select copy. Then go to the edit menu and select paste. Every time I have done this nothing happens. I tried on another person's ArcMap and it worked. I tried checking off the 'spatial analysis' box in the customize--> extensions menu but that did nothing. Any ideas?

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    As usual, restart ArcGIS and try again. Your instructions look fine, don't think you need to be in data view though. – timlohnes Aug 6 '15 at 20:33
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    I'm not sure if this is what you are trying to accomplish, but you can use Insert menu - Data Frame, then right click that data frame - New Group Layer then copy all of the layers from your original data frame - right click New Group Layer - Paste Layer(s). – KFP Aug 7 '15 at 13:21
  • You have to go into Layout View and then it works. – user76413 Jun 19 '16 at 8:03
  • I had a similar problem in ArcMap 10.5.1, but it was because I was not in layout view. I assume this issue was fixed in 10.5 or 10.4? – Steve T. Aug 13 '17 at 14:48
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Unfortunately, you've run into BUG-000088466, in which you can't copy and paste a data frame in ArcGIS 10.3.1. The suggested workaround is what @KFP said: copy and paste your layers into a new data frame. That won't copy any properties you may have set on the original data frame, so you'll have to set those manually.

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Another work-around until the bug is fixed is to start a second instance of ArcMap, then drag the data frame you with to copy into the new table of contents (thus creating a copy in the new map doc). Once it has copied in the new table of contents, you can simply drag it back to the original map document contents.

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You can do this from the Layout View using the following process:

  1. Select your data-frame in the layout view.
    enter image description here
  2. Right-Click > Copy (or Ctrl+C)
    enter image description here
  3. Right-Click > Paste (or Ctrl+V)
    enter image description here

Your data-frame will have been copied in the layout and show as a second data-frame in the Table of Contents

enter image description here

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