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

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 (