When even trying to just copy a layer group consisting of only lines or curves I still get the same message about can't paste text outside of the text tool.  It's copying to the clipboard but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong on the new document side where I want to copy it to.  I tried various forms of pasting. Just plain "Paste", "Paste in place" etc. I just want to copy all the defined layer groups of one document to a new document.

Can you check in Objects and Layers panel if all necessary parts are selected before „copy“ takes place?

I went to Edit/Select All Layers and then pasted into the new document with simply Edit/Paste and that did paste all layers to the new document.  The layer groups were not preserved but they were all there. I'm pretty sure I tried that before when it didn't work and I got that other message. I do remember selecting "All Layers" and seeing them all highlighted in the right pane and then copy from the Edit menu before. Not sure yet what was different on the new document before.

How come simply right clicking on a individual layer group in the right pane and then choosing copy from the drop down menu there dosen't work?  In the instance that I just wanted to copy one layer group over to another document instead of all layers?

Edit:

"In the instance that I just wanted to copy one layer group over to another document instead of all layers?"

I figured that out actually.  I highlighted the single layer group and then went to the edit menu and chose "Select All" instead of Select All Layers.  That works.  It still doesn't preserve the layers in a group but that's not a big deal.  It's easy enough to create a new layer and drag them all to a new layer for a new layer group.

**Also, just experimented with that copy command in the right pane drop down menu.  That only works with individual layers selected and not a layer group.

SOLVED:

I got the same thing again again and I couldn't figure it out..  "Can't paste text outside of the text tool".  I found out what I had wrong.  On the document that had all the selected layers that I wanted to copy, the TEXT TOOL BUTTON was activated when I was "copying" the layers. I clicked on the pointer tool and THEN hit copy, brought up the new document to paste into and it pasted fine. I'm not sure if that's a bug or not. All the selected layers won't copy if the text tool button is active, even though...  all the layers in the right pane "Layers and Objects" tab are highlighted, indicating they are ready to be copied.  

One additional thing.  I noticed that when the text tool button was active and all the layers were highlighted in the right Layers and Objects pane, the actual layers on the artboard were not showing active/not showing their boundary boxes. It was only when I made the pointer tool button active that all the layers on the artboard showed "selected' with the visible boundary box outlines.