Pipe output to the clipboard using PowerShell

If you have WMF 5.0, PowerShell contains two new cmdlets:

get-clipboard and set-clipboard

EDIT: Please look at question instead for solution.

Here is my solution:

Add-Type -AssemblyName 'System.Windows.Forms'

filter Set-Clipboard {
    begin {
        $cp = @()
    }
    process {
        $_ | Tee-Object -Variable 'cp0'
        $cp = $cp + @($cp0);
    }
    end {
        $str = ($cp | Out-String).ToString();

        [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::Clear();

        if ( ($str -ne $null) -and ($str -ne '') ) {
            [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetText( $str )
        }

        $cp = @()
    }
}

This collects all the objects in an array, $cp. We use Tee-Object to redirect the current element, $_, to both the next process and to store it in the array, $cp. Lastly, once the process is finished we set the clipboard's text.

I have used it in the following way:

dir -Recurse | Set-Clipboard | Select 'Name'

And it seems to work.

To use a function instead:

function Set-Clipboard-Func {
    $str = $input | Out-String

    [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::Clear();

    if ( ($str -ne $null) -and ($str -ne '') ) {
        [Windows.Forms.Clipboard]::SetText( $str )
    }
}

Powershell version 6.1 removed this commandlet, so it is no longer built-in.

Instead, you need to install the ClipboardText package. In Powershell's console type:

Install-Module -Name ClipboardText

Then you can use:

 Set-ClipboardText "hello clipboard"
 Get-ClipboardText

Here is the github issue with the maintainers of Powershell redirecting you to use the ClipboardText package.