Use clipboard from VBScript

Question

I am looking for a method to place some text onto the clipboard with VBScript. The VBScript in question will be deployed as part of our login script. I would like to avoid

Answer 1

Microsoft doesn't give a way for VBScript to directly access the clipboard. If you do a search for 'clipboard'on this site you'll see:

Although Visual Basic for Applications supports the Screen, Printer, App, Debug, Err, and Clipboard objects, VBScript supports only the Err object. Therefore, VBScript does not allow you to access such useful objects as the mouse pointer or the clipboard. You can, however, use the Err object to provide runtime error handling for your applications.

So using notepad indirectly is probably about the best you'll be able to do with just VBScript.

Answer 2

Using Microsoft's clip.exe is the closest to having a clean Windows XP system solution. However you don't have to call CMD.EXE to host it in order to use it. You can call it directly and write to its input stream in your script code. Once you close the input stream clip.exe will write the contents straight to the clipboard.

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set oExec = WshShell.Exec("clip")
Set oIn = oExec.stdIn
oIn.WriteLine "Something One"
oIn.WriteLine "Something Two"
oIn.WriteLine "Something Three"
oIn.Close

If you need to wait for clip to be finished before your script can continue processing then add

' loop until we're finished working.
Do While oExec.Status = 0
    WScript.Sleep 100
Loop

And don't forget to release your objects

Set oIn = Nothing
Set oExec = Nothing

Answer 3

Take a look at this post. It describes a hacky approach to read from the clipboard, but I imagine it could be adapted to also write to the clipboard as well, such as changing the Ctrl+V to Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C.

Answer 4

In your Class ClipBoard, neither the Clear sub nor the Let Data sub work. I mean they have no effect on Windows Clipboard. Actually, and ironically so, the only sub that works is the one you have not included in your example, that is Get Data! (I have tested this code quite a few times.)

However, it's not your fault. I have tried to copy data to clipboard with ClipboardData.SetData and it's impossible. At least not by creating an "htmlfile" object. Maybe it works by creating an instance of "InternetExplorer.Application" as I have seen in a few cases, but I have not tried it. I hate creating application instances for such simple tasks!

Alkis

Answer 5

Another solution I have found that isn't perfect in my opinion, but doesn't have the annoying security warnings is to use clip.exe from a w2k3 server.

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "cmd.exe /c echo hello world | clip", 0, TRUE

Example with a multiline string as per question below : Link1

Dim string
String = "text here" &chr(13)& "more text here"
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "cmd.exe /c echo " & String & " | clip", 0, TRUE

Answer 6

I devised another way to use IE and yet avoid security warnings...

By the way.. this function is in JavaScript.. but u can easily convert it to VBScript..

function CopyText(sTxt) {
    var oIe = WScript.CreateObject('InternetExplorer.Application');
    oIe.silent = true;
    oIe.Navigate('about:blank');
    while(oIe.ReadyState!=4) WScript.Sleep(20);
    while(oIe.document.readyState!='complete') WSript.Sleep(20);
    oIe.document.body.innerHTML = "<textarea id=txtArea wrap=off></textarea>";
    var oTb = oIe.document.getElementById('txtArea');
    oTb.value = sTxt;
    oTb.select();
    oTb = null;
    oIe.ExecWB(12,0);
    oIe.Quit();
    oIe = null;
}