Write image to Windows clipboard in python with PIL and win32clipboard?

Question

I’m trying to open an image file and copy the image to the Windows clipboard. Is there a way to fix this:

import win32clipboard
from PIL import Image

def send_to_clipboard(clip_type, data): 
    win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
    win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
    win32clipboard.SetClipboardData(clip_type, data) 
    win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

clip_type = win32clipboard.CF_BITMAP
filepath = 'c:\temp\image.jpg'

im = Image.open(filepath) 
data = im.tobitmap() # fails with valueerror: not a bitmap
# data = im.tostring() runs, but receiving programs can't read the results
send_to_clipboard(clip_type, data)

I could install PythonMagick, etc., but would prefer not installing yet another library for a one-off program

Asked By: foosion

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Source

Answer 1

from cStringIO import StringIO
import win32clipboard
from PIL import Image

def send_to_clipboard(clip_type, data):
    win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
    win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
    win32clipboard.SetClipboardData(clip_type, data)
    win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

filepath = 'image.jpg'
image = Image.open(filepath)

output = StringIO()
image.convert("RGB").save(output, "BMP")
data = output.getvalue()[14:]
output.close()

send_to_clipboard(win32clipboard.CF_DIB, data)

Answered By: cgohlke

Answer 2

The file header off-set of BMP is 14 bytes. Well, BMP is also known as the device independent bitmap (DIB) file format, so you don’t need to worried about the magic number 14.

FYI, it does need a windows clipboard API. Hence you can use BMP but can’t use

image.convert("RGB").save(output, "PNG")
data = output.getvalue()[8:]

even you know the offset is 8 for PNG.

Answered By: yfyang

Answer 3

This worked for me in Python 3.8 (solution found here)

It’s the same answer as the cgohike’s but:

output = StringIO()

changed into:

output = io.BytesIO()

Full code:

import io
import win32clipboard
from PIL import Image

def send_to_clipboard(clip_type, data):
    win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
    win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
    win32clipboard.SetClipboardData(clip_type, data)
    win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

image = Image.open('image.jpg')

output = io.BytesIO()
image.convert("RGB").save(output, "BMP")
data = output.getvalue()[14:]
output.close()

send_to_clipboard(win32clipboard.CF_DIB, data)

Answered By: deshu

Answer 4

Addendum to the other answers, it’s also possible to copy PNG (and probably other formats) to the clipboard. I’ve used the following:

buffer = io.BytesIO()
img_out.save(fp=buffer, format='PNG')

clipboard_format = win32clipboard.RegisterClipboardFormat('PNG')
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
win32clipboard.SetClipboardData(clipboard_format, buffer.getvalue())
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

buffer.close()

This answer to a related question details support by some programs for the non-standard clipboard format "PNG", which I used in my answer. If the program you want to copy to accepts a custom clipboard format, this is an alternative. You can also of course define many standard and/or non-standard clipboard formats together.

Answered By: Huzzah

Write image to Windows clipboard in python with PIL and win32clipboard?

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