How to copy data to clipboard in C#

Question

How can I copy a string (e.g "hello") to the System Clipboard in C#, so next time I press CTRL+V I'll get "hello"?

Answer 1

You'll need a namespace declaration:

using System.Windows.Forms;

OR for WPF:

using System.Windows;

To copy an exact string (literal in this case):

Clipboard.SetText("Hello, clipboard");

To copy the contents of a textbox:

Clipboard.SetText(txtClipboard.Text);

See here for an example. Or... Official MSDN documentation or Here for WPF.

Answer 2

Clipboard.SetText("hello");

You'll need to use the System.Windows.Forms or System.Windows namespaces for that.

Answer 3

For console projects in a step-by-step fashion, you'll have to first add the System.Windows.Forms reference. The following steps work in Visual Studio Community 2013 with .NET 4.5:

1. In Solution Explorer, expand your console project.
2. Right-click References, then click Add Reference...
3. In the Assemblies group, under Framework, select System.Windows.Forms.
4. Click OK.

Then, add the following using statement in with the others at the top of your code:

using System.Windows.Forms;

Then, add either of the following Clipboard.SetText statements to your code:

Clipboard.SetText("hello");
// OR
Clipboard.SetText(helloString);

And lastly, add STAThreadAttribute to your Main method as follows, to avoid a System.Threading.ThreadStateException:

[STAThreadAttribute]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
  // ...
}

Answer 4

My Experience with this issue using WPF C# coping to clipboard and System.Threading.ThreadStateException is here with my code that worked correctly with all browsers:

Thread thread = new Thread(() => Clipboard.SetText("String to be copied to clipboard"));
thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); //Set the thread to STA
thread.Start(); 
thread.Join();

credits to this post here

But this works only on localhost, so don't try this on a server, as it's not going to work.

On server-side, I did it by using zeroclipboard. The only way, after a lot of research.