How do I read text from the clipboard?

python windows clipboard
Foo42 picture Foo42 · Sep 19, 2008 · Viewed 101.5k times · Source

How do I read text from the (windows) clipboard with python?

Answer

Sakin picture Sakin · Sep 19, 2008

You can use the module called win32clipboard, which is part of pywin32.

Here is an example that first sets the clipboard data then gets it:

import win32clipboard

# set clipboard data
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
win32clipboard.EmptyClipboard()
win32clipboard.SetClipboardText('testing 123')
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

# get clipboard data
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()
data = win32clipboard.GetClipboardData()
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()
print data

An important reminder from the documentation:

When the window has finished examining or changing the clipboard, close the clipboard by calling CloseClipboard. This enables other windows to access the clipboard. Do not place an object on the clipboard after calling CloseClipboard.

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