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

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)

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.