Pyperclip – A cross-platform clipboard module for Python
I got tired of not having a good cross-platform module for accessing the clipboard in Python, so I put this together. It is a module that loads a copy() and paste() function depending on what your operating system (or window manager) is.
It has the following requirements:
- Windows – No requirements. You don’t need the win32 module installed.
- Mac – Requires the pbcopy and pbpaste, which come with OS X.
- Linux – Requires the xclip command, which possibly comes with the os. If not, run
sudo apt-get install xclip. Or have the gtk or PyQt4 modules installed. Also can use the xsel command. - Pyperclip runs on both Python 2 and Python 3.
Usage is simple:
import pyperclip
pyperclip.copy('The text to be copied to the clipboard.')
spam = pyperclip.paste()
UPDATE: (8/16/2014) Download Pyperclip from PyPI.
UPDATE: (9/13/2011) I’ve fixed a small TypeError that some people were coming across that Gustav pointed out below.
UPDATE: Kenneth Reitz pointed out that he’s coded a similar module called Xerox. I missed it in my prior art search. http://github.com/kennethreitz/xerox It seems to have a fairly similar implementation as Pyperclip, except requires the win32 Python module to work on Windows.
I’m busy trying to figure out X11 programming so I can get rid of the xclip dependency.
12 Responses to “Pyperclip – A cross-platform clipboard module for Python”
I see the download file says it’s version 1.4. But PyPI still has version 1.3.
Another platform to support is cygwin which is able to access the windows user32 dll through ctypes.cdll instead of ctypes.windll. I was able to support the python distrubuted with cygwin with the following additions to pyperclip.py:
…
def cygwinGetClipboard():
ctypes.cdll.user32.OpenClipboard(0)
pcontents = ctypes.cdll.user32.GetClipboardData(1) # 1 is CF_TEXT
data = ctypes.c_char_p(pcontents).value
#ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock(pcontents)
ctypes.cdll.user32.CloseClipboard()
return data
def cygwinSetClipboard(text):
text = str(text)
GMEM_DDESHARE = 0x2000
ctypes.cdll.user32.OpenClipboard(0)
ctypes.cdll.user32.EmptyClipboard()
try:
# works on Python 2 (bytes() only takes one argument)
hCd = ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc(GMEM_DDESHARE, len(bytes(text))+1)
except TypeError:
# works on Python 3 (bytes() requires an encoding)
hCd = ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GlobalAlloc(GMEM_DDESHARE, len(bytes(text, ‘ascii’))+1)
pchData = ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GlobalLock(hCd)
try:
# works on Python 2 (bytes() only takes one argument)
ctypes.cdll.msvcrt.strcpy(ctypes.c_char_p(pchData), bytes(text))
except TypeError:
# works on Python 3 (bytes() requires an encoding)
ctypes.cdll.msvcrt.strcpy(ctypes.c_char_p(pchData), bytes(text, ‘ascii’))
ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock(hCd)
ctypes.cdll.user32.SetClipboardData(1, hCd)
ctypes.cdll.user32.CloseClipboard()
…
elif platform.system()[0:6] == ‘CYGWIN’:
import ctypes
getcb = cygwinGetClipboard
setcb = cygwinSetClipboard
…
Are there any know issues with using pyperclip inside a crontab.
My script just won’t work when I import pyperclip.
I am using pyperclip on CentOS with xclip.
Also its an headless system, so I call it will export DISPLAY=:1 (My virtual display)
Any suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
I figured out the issue.
xsel was not found in $PATH so made a soft link in /usr/bin
i think theres a bug when used in compibation with opoencv 2.4.9:
theres a segfault if one tries to open a cv2 frame when pyperclip is loaded:
import numpy as np
import cv2
import cv2.cv as cv
from PIL import Image
import pyperclip
cap = cv2.VideoCapture(1)
ret, frame = cap.read()
cv2.imshow(‘frame’,frame)
It doesn’t seem to work if you’re not running a GUI which is extremely disappointing.
Is it possible to store a range of excel cells as an image (like jpg/png) file using this module?
Nope, the module only works on text.
how pyperclip.copy( u”中文.jpg” ) # how to copy unicode to clipboard?
what is causing this error
>>> import pyperclip
>>> pyperclip.copy(‘Hello world!’)
>>> pyperclip.paste
>>> pyperclip.copy(‘Hello world!’)
>>> pyperclip.paste
>>>
is the issue
function _pasteWindows at 0x0398C1E0
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