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

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")

Answer 2

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”:                                                                     

                                                        
            

Answer 3

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()

Answer 4

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)

Answer 5

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())