How do I copy a string to the clipboard on Windows using Python?

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 Pytho

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

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()

Answer 3

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/

Answer 4

you can try this:

command = 'echo content |clip'
subprocess.check_call(command, shell=True)

Answer 5

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 (

Answer 6

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.