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?
Answers:
Looks like you need to add win32clipboard to your site-packages. It’s part of the pywin32 package
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
OpenClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard # Basic clipboard functions
EmptyClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.EmptyClipboard
GetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClipboardData
SetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.SetClipboardData
CloseClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard
GlobalAlloc = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc # Global memory allocation
GlobalLock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock # Global memory Locking
GlobalUnlock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock
GMEM_DDESHARE = 0x2000
def Get():
OpenClipboard(None) # Open Clip, Default task
pcontents = GetClipboardData(1) # 1 means CF_TEXT.. too lazy to get the token thingy...
data = ctypes.c_char_p(pcontents).value
#GlobalUnlock(pcontents) ?
CloseClipboard()
return data
def Paste(data):
OpenClipboard(None) # Open Clip, Default task
EmptyClipboard()
hCd = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_DDESHARE, len(bytes(data,"ascii")) + 1)
pchData = GlobalLock(hCd)
strcpy(ctypes.c_char_p(pchData), bytes(data, "ascii"))
GlobalUnlock(hCd)
SetClipboardData(1, hCd)
CloseClipboard()
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 # in Python 2, use "Tkinter" instead
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 2, replace tkinter
with Tkinter
.
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 XP it will work just following the steps in Copy and paste from Windows XP Pro’s command prompt straight to the Clipboard.
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.
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
from ctypes.wintypes import BOOL, HWND, HANDLE, HGLOBAL, UINT, LPVOID
from ctypes import c_size_t as SIZE_T
OpenClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard
OpenClipboard.argtypes = HWND,
OpenClipboard.restype = BOOL
EmptyClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.EmptyClipboard
EmptyClipboard.restype = BOOL
GetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClipboardData
GetClipboardData.argtypes = UINT,
GetClipboardData.restype = HANDLE
SetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.SetClipboardData
SetClipboardData.argtypes = UINT, HANDLE
SetClipboardData.restype = HANDLE
CloseClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard
CloseClipboard.restype = BOOL
CF_UNICODETEXT = 13
GlobalAlloc = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc
GlobalAlloc.argtypes = UINT, SIZE_T
GlobalAlloc.restype = HGLOBAL
GlobalLock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock
GlobalLock.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalLock.restype = LPVOID
GlobalUnlock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock
GlobalUnlock.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalSize = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalSize
GlobalSize.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalSize.restype = SIZE_T
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' ')
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 ( )
.
Update 2021-10-26: This was working great for me in Windows 7 and Python 3.8. Then I got a new computer with Windows 10 and Python 3.10, and it failed for me the same way as indicated in the comments. This post gave me the answer. The functions from ctypes
don’t have argument and return types properly specified, and the defaults don’t work consistently with 64-bit values. I’ve modified the above code to include that missing information.
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 = "Testingnthe “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:Python34Scriptspip 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
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)
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.
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)
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
This is an improved answer of atomizer. Note that
- there are 2 calls of
update()
and
- inserted
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()
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()
you can try this:
command = 'echo content |clip'
subprocess.check_call(command, shell=True)
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 < file" to the shell
cmd="clip < 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:
>>>cp2clip(["ET","phone","home"])
>>>0
Ctrl+V in any text editor :
ET
phone
home
If you don’t like the name you can use the derivative module clipboard
.
Note: It’s just a selective wrapper 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()
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' ')
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())
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("test")
Use python’s clipboard library!
import clipboard as cp
cp.copy("abc")
Clipboard contains ‘abc’ now. Happy pasting!
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)
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/
Use pyperclip
module
Install using pip pip install pyperclip
.
Copy text "Hello World!"
to clip board
import pyperclip
pyperclip.copy('Hello World!')
You can use Ctrl+V
anywhere to paste this somewhere.
Paste the copied text using python
pyperclip.paste() # This returns the copied text of type <class 'str'>
On Windows, you can use: pywin32
.
Install it with: pip install pywin32
.
Use it like this.
import win32clipboard
def to_clipboard(txt):
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
win32clipboard.SetClipboardText(txt)
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
also you can use > clipboard
import clipboard
def copy(txt):
clipboard.copy(txt)
copy("your txt")
If (and only if) the application already uses Qt, you can use this (with the advantage of no additional third party dependency)
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication
clipboard = QApplication.clipboard()
# get text (if there's text inside instead of e.g. file)
clipboard.text()
# set text
clipboard.setText(s)
This requires a Qt application object to be already constructed, so it should not be used unless the application already uses Qt.
Besides, as usual, in X systems (and maybe other systems too), the content only persist until the application exists unless you use something like parcellite or xclipboard.
Documentation:
See also: python – PyQT – copy file to clipboard – Stack Overflow
Solution with stdlib, without security issues
The following solution works in Linux without any additional library and without the risk of executing unwanted code in your shell.
import subprocess
def to_clipboard(text: str) -> None:
sp = subprocess.Popen(["xclip"], stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
sp.communicate(text.encode("utf8"))
Note that there multiple clipboard in Linux, the you use with the Middle Mouse (Primary) and yet another that you use pressing STRG+C,STRG+V
.
You can define which clipboard is used by adding a selection parameter i.e. ["xclip", "-selection", "clipboard"]
.
See the man xclip
for details.
If you using Windows, just replace xclip
with clip.
This solution works without Tkinter, which not available some Python installations (i.e. the custom build I am currently using).
My multiplatform solution base on this question:
import subprocess
import distutils.spawn
def clipit(text):
if distutils.spawn.find_executable("xclip"):
# for Linux
subprocess.run(["xclip", "-i"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
elif distutils.spawn.find_executable("xsel"):
# for Linux
subprocess.run(["xsel", "--input"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
elif distutils.spawn.find_executable("clip"):
# for Windows
subprocess.run(["clip"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
else:
import pyperclip
print("I use module pyperclip.")
pyperclip.copy(text)
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?
Looks like you need to add win32clipboard to your site-packages. It’s part of the pywin32 package
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
OpenClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard # Basic clipboard functions
EmptyClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.EmptyClipboard
GetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClipboardData
SetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.SetClipboardData
CloseClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard
GlobalAlloc = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc # Global memory allocation
GlobalLock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock # Global memory Locking
GlobalUnlock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock
GMEM_DDESHARE = 0x2000
def Get():
OpenClipboard(None) # Open Clip, Default task
pcontents = GetClipboardData(1) # 1 means CF_TEXT.. too lazy to get the token thingy...
data = ctypes.c_char_p(pcontents).value
#GlobalUnlock(pcontents) ?
CloseClipboard()
return data
def Paste(data):
OpenClipboard(None) # Open Clip, Default task
EmptyClipboard()
hCd = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_DDESHARE, len(bytes(data,"ascii")) + 1)
pchData = GlobalLock(hCd)
strcpy(ctypes.c_char_p(pchData), bytes(data, "ascii"))
GlobalUnlock(hCd)
SetClipboardData(1, hCd)
CloseClipboard()
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 # in Python 2, use "Tkinter" instead
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 2, replace tkinter
with Tkinter
.
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 XP it will work just following the steps in Copy and paste from Windows XP Pro’s command prompt straight to the Clipboard.
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.
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
from ctypes.wintypes import BOOL, HWND, HANDLE, HGLOBAL, UINT, LPVOID
from ctypes import c_size_t as SIZE_T
OpenClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard
OpenClipboard.argtypes = HWND,
OpenClipboard.restype = BOOL
EmptyClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.EmptyClipboard
EmptyClipboard.restype = BOOL
GetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClipboardData
GetClipboardData.argtypes = UINT,
GetClipboardData.restype = HANDLE
SetClipboardData = ctypes.windll.user32.SetClipboardData
SetClipboardData.argtypes = UINT, HANDLE
SetClipboardData.restype = HANDLE
CloseClipboard = ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard
CloseClipboard.restype = BOOL
CF_UNICODETEXT = 13
GlobalAlloc = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc
GlobalAlloc.argtypes = UINT, SIZE_T
GlobalAlloc.restype = HGLOBAL
GlobalLock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock
GlobalLock.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalLock.restype = LPVOID
GlobalUnlock = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock
GlobalUnlock.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalSize = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalSize
GlobalSize.argtypes = HGLOBAL,
GlobalSize.restype = SIZE_T
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' ')
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 ( )
.
Update 2021-10-26: This was working great for me in Windows 7 and Python 3.8. Then I got a new computer with Windows 10 and Python 3.10, and it failed for me the same way as indicated in the comments. This post gave me the answer. The functions from ctypes
don’t have argument and return types properly specified, and the defaults don’t work consistently with 64-bit values. I’ve modified the above code to include that missing information.
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 = "Testingnthe “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:Python34Scriptspip 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
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)
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.
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)
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
This is an improved answer of atomizer. Note that
- there are 2 calls of
update()
and - inserted
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()
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()
you can try this:
command = 'echo content |clip'
subprocess.check_call(command, shell=True)
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 < file" to the shell
cmd="clip < 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:
>>>cp2clip(["ET","phone","home"])
>>>0
Ctrl+V in any text editor :
ET
phone
home
If you don’t like the name you can use the derivative module clipboard
.
Note: It’s just a selective wrapper 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()
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' ')
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())
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("test")
Use python’s clipboard library!
import clipboard as cp
cp.copy("abc")
Clipboard contains ‘abc’ now. Happy pasting!
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)
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/
Use pyperclip
module
Install using pip pip install pyperclip
.
Copy text "Hello World!"
to clip board
import pyperclip
pyperclip.copy('Hello World!')
You can use Ctrl+V
anywhere to paste this somewhere.
Paste the copied text using python
pyperclip.paste() # This returns the copied text of type <class 'str'>
On Windows, you can use: pywin32
.
Install it with: pip install pywin32
.
Use it like this.
import win32clipboard
def to_clipboard(txt):
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
win32clipboard.SetClipboardText(txt)
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
also you can use > clipboard
import clipboard
def copy(txt):
clipboard.copy(txt)
copy("your txt")
If (and only if) the application already uses Qt, you can use this (with the advantage of no additional third party dependency)
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication
clipboard = QApplication.clipboard()
# get text (if there's text inside instead of e.g. file)
clipboard.text()
# set text
clipboard.setText(s)
This requires a Qt application object to be already constructed, so it should not be used unless the application already uses Qt.
Besides, as usual, in X systems (and maybe other systems too), the content only persist until the application exists unless you use something like parcellite or xclipboard.
Documentation:
See also: python – PyQT – copy file to clipboard – Stack Overflow
Solution with stdlib, without security issues
The following solution works in Linux without any additional library and without the risk of executing unwanted code in your shell.
import subprocess
def to_clipboard(text: str) -> None:
sp = subprocess.Popen(["xclip"], stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
sp.communicate(text.encode("utf8"))
Note that there multiple clipboard in Linux, the you use with the Middle Mouse (Primary) and yet another that you use pressing STRG+C,STRG+V
.
You can define which clipboard is used by adding a selection parameter i.e. ["xclip", "-selection", "clipboard"]
.
See the man xclip
for details.
If you using Windows, just replace xclip
with clip.
This solution works without Tkinter, which not available some Python installations (i.e. the custom build I am currently using).
My multiplatform solution base on this question:
import subprocess
import distutils.spawn
def clipit(text):
if distutils.spawn.find_executable("xclip"):
# for Linux
subprocess.run(["xclip", "-i"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
elif distutils.spawn.find_executable("xsel"):
# for Linux
subprocess.run(["xsel", "--input"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
elif distutils.spawn.find_executable("clip"):
# for Windows
subprocess.run(["clip"], input=text.encode("utf8"))
else:
import pyperclip
print("I use module pyperclip.")
pyperclip.copy(text)