Access clipboard in Windows batch file

Slimming it down (on a new enough version of Windows):

set _getclip=powershell "Add-Type -Assembly PresentationCore;[Windows.Clipboard]::GetText()"
for /f "eol=; tokens=*" %I in ('%_getclip%') do set CLIPBOARD_TEXT=%I

First line declares a powershell commandlet.
Second line runs and captures the console output of this commandlet into the CLIPBOARD_TEXT enviroment variable (cmd.exe's closest way to do bash style backtick ` capture)

Update 2017-12-04:

Thanks to @Saintali for pointing out that PowerShell 5.0 adds Get-Clipboard as a top level cmdlets, so this now works as a one liner:

for /f "eol=; tokens=*" %I in ('powershell Get-Clipboard') do set CLIPBOARD_TEXT=%I

Best way I know, is by using a standalone tool called WINCLIP .

You can get it from here: Outwit

Usage:

Save clipboard to file: winclip -p file.txt
Copy stdout to clipboard: winclip -c Ex: Sed 's/find/replace/' file | winclip -c
Pipe clipboard to sed: winclip -p | Sed 's/find/replace/'
Use winclip output (clipboard) as an argument of another command:

FOR /F "tokens=* usebackq" %%G in ('winclip -p') Do (YOUR_Command %%G ) Note that if you have multiple lines in your clipboard, this command will parse them one by one.

You might also want to take a look at getclip & putclip tools: CygUtils for Windows but winclip is better in my opinion.

To set the contents of the clipboard, as Chris Thornton, klaatu, and bunches of others have said, use %windir%\system32\clip.exe.

Update 2:

For a quick one-liner, you could do something like this:

powershell -sta "add-type -as System.Windows.Forms; [windows.forms.clipboard]::GetText()"

Capture and parse with a for /F loop if needed. This will not execute as quickly as the JScript solution below, but it does have the advantage of simplicity.

Updated solution:

Thanks Jonathan for pointing to the capabilities of the mysterious htmlfile COM object for retrieving the clipboard. It is possible to invoke a batch + JScript hybrid to retrieve the contents of the clipboard. In fact, it only takes one line of JScript, and a cscript line to trigger it, and is much faster than the PowerShell / .NET solution offered earlier.

@if (@CodeSection == @Batch) @then

@echo off
setlocal

set "getclip=cscript /nologo /e:JScript "%~f0""

rem // If you want to process the contents of the clipboard line-by-line, use
rem // something like this to preserve blank lines:
for /f "delims=" %%I in ('%getclip% ^| findstr /n "^"') do (
    setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
    set "line=%%I" & set "line=!line:*:=!"
    echo(!line!
    endlocal
)

rem // If all you need is to output the clipboard text to the console without
rem // any processing, then remove the "for /f" loop above and uncomment the
rem // following line:
:: %getclip%

goto :EOF

@end // begin JScript hybrid chimera
WSH.Echo(WSH.CreateObject('htmlfile').parentWindow.clipboardData.getData('text'));

Old solution:

It is possible to retrieve clipboard text from the Windows console without any 3rd-party applications by using .NET. If you have powershell installed, you can retrieve the clipboard contents by creating an imaginary textbox and pasting into it. (Source)

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
$tb = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
$tb.Multiline = $true
$tb.Paste()
$tb.Text

If you don't have powershell, you can still compile a simple .NET application to dump the clipboard text to the console. Here's a C# example. (Inspiration)

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
class dummy {
    [STAThread]
    public static void Main() {
        if (Clipboard.ContainsText()) Console.Write(Clipboard.GetText());
    }
}

Here's a batch script that combines both methods. If powershell exists within %PATH%, use it. Otherwise, find the C# compiler / linker and build a temporary .NET application. As you can see in the batch script comments, you can capture the clipboard contents using a for /f loop or simply dump them to the console.

:: clipboard.bat
:: retrieves contents of clipboard

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

:: Does powershell.exe exist within %PATH%?
for %%I in (powershell.exe) do if "%%~$PATH:I" neq "" (
    set getclip=powershell "Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms;$tb=New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox;$tb.Multiline=$true;$tb.Paste();$tb.Text"
) else (
rem :: If not, compose and link C# application to retrieve clipboard text
    set getclip=%temp%\getclip.exe
    >"%temp%\c.cs" echo using System;using System.Threading;using System.Windows.Forms;class dummy{[STAThread]
    >>"%temp%\c.cs" echo public static void Main^(^){if^(Clipboard.ContainsText^(^)^) Console.Write^(Clipboard.GetText^(^)^);}}
    for /f "delims=" %%I in ('dir /b /s "%windir%\microsoft.net\*csc.exe"') do (
        if not exist "!getclip!" "%%I" /nologo /out:"!getclip!" "%temp%\c.cs" 2>NUL
    )
    del "%temp%\c.cs"
    if not exist "!getclip!" (
        echo Error: Please install .NET 2.0 or newer, or install PowerShell.
        goto :EOF
    )
)

:: If you want to process the contents of the clipboard line-by-line, use
:: something like this to preserve blank lines:
for /f "delims=" %%I in ('%getclip% ^| findstr /n "^"') do (
    set "line=%%I" & set "line=!line:*:=!"
    echo(!line!
)

:: If all you need is to output the clipboard text to the console without
:: any processing, then remove the above "for /f" loop and uncomment the
:: following line:

:: %getclip%

:: Clean up the mess
del "%temp%\getclip.exe" 2>NUL
goto :EOF

The clip command is good to pipe text to the clipboard, but it can't read from the clipboard. There is a way in vbscript / javascript to read / write the clipboard but it uses automation and an invisible instance if Internet Explorer to do it so its pretty fat.

The best tool I've found for working the clipboard from script is Nirsoft's free NirCmd tool.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

Its like a swiss army knife of batch commands all in one small .exe file. For clipboard commands you would say someting like

nircmd clipboard [Action] [Parameter]

Plus you can directly refer to clipboard contents in any of its commands using its ~$clipboard$ variable as an argument. Nircmd also has commands in it to run other programs or commands from so it is possible to use it to pass the clipboard contents as an argument to other batch commands this way.

Clipboard actions:

      set - set the specified text into the clipboard. 
 readfile - set the content of the specified text file into the clipboard. 
    clear - clear the clipboard. 
writefile - write the content of the clipboard to a file. (text only) 
  addfile - add the content of the clipboard to a file. (text only) 
saveimage - Save the current image in the clipboard into a file. 
copyimage - Copy the content of the specified image file to the clipboard. 
  saveclp - Save the current clipboard data into Windows .clp file. 
  loadclp - Load Windows .clp file into the clipboard.

Note that most programs will always write a plain text copy to the clipboard even when they are writing a special RTF or HTML copy to the clipboard but those are written as content using a different clipboard format type so you may not be able to access those formats unless your program explicitly requests that type of data from the clipboard.

Access clipboard in Windows batch file

Update 2017-12-04:

Update 2:

Updated solution:

Old solution:

Tags:

Windows

Batch File

Clipboard

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