How do I copy a string to the clipboard

Question

I m trying to make a basic Windows application that builds a string out of user input and then adds it to the clipboard  How do I copy a string to the clipboard using Python

User · Answer

Not all of the answers worked for my various python configurations so this solution only uses the subprocess module. However, copy_keyword has to be pbcopy for Mac or clip for Windows:

import subprocess
subprocess.run('copy_keyword', universal_newlines=True, input='New Clipboard Value ')

Here's some more extensive code that automatically checks what the current operating system is:

import platform
import subprocess

copy_string = 'New Clipboard Value '

# Check which operating system is running to get the correct copying keyword.
if platform.system() == 'Darwin':
    copy_keyword = 'pbcopy'
elif platform.system() == 'Windows':
    copy_keyword = 'clip'

subprocess.run(copy_keyword, universal_newlines=True, input=copy_string)

User · Answer

Code snippet to copy the clipboard   Create a wrapper Python code in a module named  clipboard py    import clr clr AddReference  System Windows Forms   from System Windows Forms import Clipboard def setText text       Clipboard SetText text   def getText        return Clipboard GetText     Then import the above module into your code   import io import clipboard code   clipboard getText   print code code    abcd  clipboard setText code    I must give credit to the blog post Clipboard Access in IronPython

User · Answer

Widgets also have method named  clipboard get   that returns the contents of the clipboard  unless some kind of error happens based on the type of data in the clipboard    The clipboard get   method is mentioned in this bug report  http   bugs python org issue14777  Strangely  this method was not mentioned in the common  but unofficial  online TkInter documentation sources that I usually refer to

User · Answer

You can use winclip32 module  install   pip install winclip32   to copy   import winclip32 winclip32 set clipboard data winclip32 UNICODE STD TEXT   some text     to get   import winclip32 print winclip32 get clipboard data winclip32 UNICODE STD TEXT     for more informations  https   pypi org project winclip32

User · Answer

I ve tried various solutions  but this is the simplest one that passes my test    coding utf-8  import win32clipboard    http   sourceforge net projects pywin32   def copy text       win32clipboard OpenClipboard       win32clipboard EmptyClipboard       win32clipboard SetClipboardText text  win32clipboard CF UNICODETEXT      win32clipboard CloseClipboard   def paste        win32clipboard OpenClipboard       data   win32clipboard GetClipboardData win32clipboard CF UNICODETEXT      win32clipboard CloseClipboard       return data  if   name         main           text    Testing nthe    clip   board           try  text   text decode  utf8      Python 2 needs decode to make a Unicode string      except AttributeError  pass     print   r    text encode  utf8        copy text      data   paste       print   r    data encode  utf8        print  OK  if text    data else  FAIL        try  print data      except UnicodeEncodeError as er          print er          print data encode  utf8      Tested OK in Python 3 4 on Windows 8 1 and Python 2 7 on Windows 7  Also when reading Unicode data with Unix linefeeds copied from Windows  Copied data stays on the clipboard after Python exits   Testing the    clip   board        If you want no external dependencies  use this code  now part of cross-platform pyperclip - C  Python34 Scripts pip install --upgrade pyperclip    def copy text       GMEM DDESHARE   0x2000     CF UNICODETEXT   13     d   ctypes windll   cdll expects 4 more bytes in user32 OpenClipboard None      try     Python 2         if not isinstance text  unicode               text   text decode  mbcs       except NameError          if not isinstance text  str               text   text decode  mbcs       d user32 OpenClipboard 0      d user32 EmptyClipboard       hCd   d kernel32 GlobalAlloc GMEM DDESHARE  len text encode  utf-16-le      2      pchData   d kernel32 GlobalLock hCd      ctypes cdll msvcrt wcscpy ctypes c wchar p pchData   text      d kernel32 GlobalUnlock hCd      d user32 SetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT  hCd      d user32 CloseClipboard    def paste        CF UNICODETEXT   13     d   ctypes windll     d user32 OpenClipboard 0      handle   d user32 GetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT      text   ctypes c wchar p handle  value     d user32 CloseClipboard       return text

User · Answer

The simplest way is with pyperclip  Works in python 2 and 3   To install this library  use   pip install pyperclip   Example usage   import pyperclip  pyperclip copy  your string     If you want to get the contents of the clipboard   clipboard content   pyperclip paste

User · Answer

You can use module clipboard  Its simple and extremely easy to use  Works with Mac  Windows   amp  Linux  Note  Its an alternative of pyperclip  After installing  import it   import clipboard   Then you can copy like this   clipboard copy  This is copied     You can also paste the copied text   clipboard paste

User · Answer

In addition to Mark Ransom s answer using ctypes  This does not work for  all   x64 systems since the handles seem to be truncated to int-size  Explicitly defining args and return values helps to overcomes this problem   import ctypes import ctypes wintypes as w  CF UNICODETEXT   13  u32   ctypes WinDLL  user32   k32   ctypes WinDLL  kernel32    OpenClipboard   u32 OpenClipboard OpenClipboard argtypes   w HWND  OpenClipboard restype   w BOOL  GetClipboardData   u32 GetClipboardData GetClipboardData argtypes   w UINT  GetClipboardData restype   w HANDLE  EmptyClipboard   u32 EmptyClipboard EmptyClipboard restype   w BOOL  SetClipboardData   u32 SetClipboardData SetClipboardData argtypes   w UINT  w HANDLE  SetClipboardData restype   w HANDLE  CloseClipboard   u32 CloseClipboard CloseClipboard argtypes   None CloseClipboard restype   w BOOL  GHND   0x0042  GlobalAlloc   k32 GlobalAlloc GlobalAlloc argtypes   w UINT  w ctypes c size t  GlobalAlloc restype   w HGLOBAL  GlobalLock   k32 GlobalLock GlobalLock argtypes   w HGLOBAL  GlobalLock restype   w LPVOID  GlobalUnlock   k32 GlobalUnlock GlobalUnlock argtypes   w HGLOBAL  GlobalUnlock restype   w BOOL  GlobalSize   k32 GlobalSize GlobalSize argtypes   w HGLOBAL  GlobalSize restype   w ctypes c size t  unicode type   type u     def get        text   None     OpenClipboard None      handle   GetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT      pcontents   GlobalLock handle      size   GlobalSize handle      if pcontents and size          raw data   ctypes create string buffer size          ctypes memmove raw data  pcontents  size          text   raw data raw decode  utf-16le   rstrip u  0       GlobalUnlock handle      CloseClipboard       return text  def put s       if not isinstance s  unicode type           s   s decode  mbcs       data   s encode  utf-16le       OpenClipboard None      EmptyClipboard       handle   GlobalAlloc GHND  len data    2      pcontents   GlobalLock handle      ctypes memmove pcontents  data  len data       GlobalUnlock handle      SetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT  handle      CloseClipboard     Test run paste   get copy   put copy  Hello World    print paste

User · Answer

Actually  pywin32 and ctypes seem to be an overkill for this simple task  Tkinter is a cross-platform GUI framework  which ships with Python by default and has clipboard accessing methods along with other cool stuff   If all you need is to put some text to system clipboard  this will do it   from Tkinter import Tk r   Tk   r withdraw   r clipboard clear   r clipboard append  i can has clipboardz    r update     now it stays on the clipboard after the window is closed r destroy     And that s all  no need to mess around with platform-specific third-party libraries   If you are using Python 3  replace TKinter with tkinter

User · Answer

from Tkinter import Tk clip   Tk

User · Answer

Use python s clipboard library   import clipboard as cp cp copy  abc     Clipboard contains  abc  now  Happy pasting

User · Answer

import wx  def ctc text        if not wx TheClipboard IsOpened            wx TheClipboard Open           data   wx TextDataObject           data SetText text          wx TheClipboard SetData data      wx TheClipboard Close    ctc text

User · Answer

I didn t have a solution  just a workaround   Windows Vista onwards has an inbuilt command called clip that takes the output of a command from command line and puts it into the clipboard  For example  ipconfig   clip   So I made a function with the os module which takes a string and adds it to the clipboard using the inbuilt Windows solution   import os def addToClipBoard text       command    echo     text strip        clip      os system command     Example addToClipBoard  penny lane      Penny Lane is now in your ears  eyes  and clipboard    As previously noted in the comments however  one downside to this approach is that the echo command automatically adds a newline to the end of your text  To avoid this you can use a modified version of the command   def addToClipBoard text       command    echo   set  p nul     text strip        clip      os system command    If you are using Windows nbsp XP it will work just following the steps in Copy and paste from Windows XP Pro s command prompt straight to the Clipboard

User · Answer

Here s the most easy and reliable way I found if you re okay depending on Pandas  However I don t think this is officially part of the Pandas API so it may break with future updates  It works as of 0 25 3 from pandas io import clipboard clipboard copy  quot test quot

User · Answer

You can use pyperclip - cross-platform clipboard module  Or Xerox - similar module  except requires the win32 Python module to work on Windows

User · Answer

you can try this   command    echo content  clip  subprocess check call command  shell True

User · Answer

This is the improved answer of atomizer   Note 2 calls of update   and 200 ms delay between them  They protect freezing applications due to an unstable state of the clipboard   from Tkinter import Tk import time       r   Tk   r withdraw   r clipboard clear   r clipboard append  some string    r update   time sleep  2  r update    r destroy

User · Answer

The snippet I share here take advantage of the ability to format text files  what if you want to copy a complex output to the clipboard    Say a numpy array in column or a list of something   import subprocess import os  def cp2clip clist         create a temporary file     fi open  thisTextfileShouldNotExist txt   w         write in the text file the way you want your data to be     for m in clist          fi write m   n         close the file     fi close         send  clip  lt  file  to the shell     cmd  clip  lt  thisTextfileShouldNotExist txt      w   subprocess check call cmd shell True        delete the temporary text file     os remove  thisTextfileShouldNotExist txt        return w   works only for windows  can be adapted for linux or mac I guess  Maybe a bit complicated     example    gt  gt  gt cp2clip   ET   phone   home     gt  gt  gt 0   Ctrl V in any text editor    ET phone home

User · Answer

You can also use ctypes to tap into the Windows API and avoid the massive pywin32 package  This is what I use  excuse the poor style  but the idea is there    import ctypes    Get required functions  strcpy   strcpy   ctypes cdll msvcrt strcpy ocb   ctypes windll user32 OpenClipboard      Basic clipboard functions ecb   ctypes windll user32 EmptyClipboard gcd   ctypes windll user32 GetClipboardData scd   ctypes windll user32 SetClipboardData ccb   ctypes windll user32 CloseClipboard ga   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalAlloc      Global memory allocation gl   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalLock       Global memory Locking gul   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalUnlock GMEM DDESHARE   0x2000  def Get      ocb None    Open Clip  Default task    pcontents   gcd 1    1 means CF TEXT   too lazy to get the token thingy       data   ctypes c char p pcontents  value     gul pcontents      ccb      return data  def Paste data     ocb None    Open Clip  Default task    ecb      hCd   ga GMEM DDESHARE  len bytes data  ascii      1     pchData   gl hCd     strcpy ctypes c char p pchData   bytes data   ascii       gul hCd     scd 1  hCd     ccb

User · Answer

For some reason I ve never been able to get the Tk solution to work for me  kapace s solution is much more workable  but the formatting is contrary to my style and it doesn t work with Unicode  Here s a modified version   import ctypes  OpenClipboard   ctypes windll user32 OpenClipboard EmptyClipboard   ctypes windll user32 EmptyClipboard GetClipboardData   ctypes windll user32 GetClipboardData SetClipboardData   ctypes windll user32 SetClipboardData CloseClipboard   ctypes windll user32 CloseClipboard CF UNICODETEXT   13  GlobalAlloc   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalAlloc GlobalLock   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalLock GlobalUnlock   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalUnlock GlobalSize   ctypes windll kernel32 GlobalSize GMEM MOVEABLE   0x0002 GMEM ZEROINIT   0x0040  unicode type   type u     def get        text   None     OpenClipboard None      handle   GetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT      pcontents   GlobalLock handle      size   GlobalSize handle      if pcontents and size          raw data   ctypes create string buffer size          ctypes memmove raw data  pcontents  size          text   raw data raw decode  utf-16le   rstrip u  0       GlobalUnlock handle      CloseClipboard       return text  def put s       if not isinstance s  unicode type           s   s decode  mbcs       data   s encode  utf-16le       OpenClipboard None      EmptyClipboard       handle   GlobalAlloc GMEM MOVEABLE   GMEM ZEROINIT  len data    2      pcontents   GlobalLock handle      ctypes memmove pcontents  data  len data       GlobalUnlock handle      SetClipboardData CF UNICODETEXT  handle      CloseClipboard    paste   get copy   put   The above has changed since this answer was first created  to better cope with extended Unicode characters and Python 3  It has been tested in both Python 2 7 and 3 5  and works even with emoji such as  U0001f601

User · Answer

I think there is a much simpler solution to this   name   input  What is your name     print  Hello  s     name      Then run your program in the command line     python greeter py   clip   This will pipe the output of your file to the clipboard

User · Answer

Looks like you need to add win32clipboard to your site-packages   It s part of the pywin32 package

User · Answer

You can use the excellent pandas  which has a built in clipboard support  but you need to pass through a DataFrame   import pandas as pd df pd DataFrame   Text to copy    df to clipboard index False header False

[python] How do I copy a string to the clipboard?

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