Copy text to Windows clipboard

[fonrig]

Is there a trick to copy text to the Windows clipboard?

I'm using doc.Copy(0) and I'm getting selected text into the clipboard but it only pastes into FrameMaker and not on Windows (outside of FM).

I need the text in the clipboard since I have a vba script that wants to read from its contents.

Thanks!

[Ian Proudfoot]

I tried this and I get the expected results for pasting into other applications. When you copy a selection to the clipboard, FrameMaker adds several versions to the clipboard. For a normal selection of text paragraphs you may find these formats:

• FrameMaker Interchange Format;
• Rich Text Format;
• Text;
• Unicode Text;
• FrameMaker Interchange Format (Unicode).

However if the selection is a text frame the options will be:

• Metafile;
• Enhanced Metafile.

One way to test the available clipboard formats is to copy the required text then manually select Edit > Paste Special. The dialog shows you what FrameMaker has on the clipboard.

I believe that FrameMaker is probably doing what is expected and the selection of the format to paste should be controlled by Visual Basic. It's so long since I touched VB that I can't really help with that.

Good luck

Ian

[Ian Proudfoot]

In Visual Basic this should paste the required formats:

Clipboard.GetData(DataFormats.Text)

[K.Daube · Accepted solution]

mHm, I have a Script where I do this:

• Compose a file path and copy it to the clipboard (see function below).
• Instruct the user with this note: «The bibliographic application Citavi will be started. … Select the RTF file to be handled (paste the file-name from the clipboard) …»
• Start the bibliographic application and wait for it's completion …

Obviously this only be done from the Windows clipboard contents. It works as intended.

function CopyToClipboard (theString) { //=== Copy string to clipboard =============================
// Arguments  theString:  string to be copied to clipboard
// Called by  FMbiblioCallBibapp
// Reference  Based on Rick Quatro's method
  var oDoc, tRange, masterPage, textFrame, oPgf, textLoc, PT = 65536; 
// Create a textframe with a paragraph on the first masterpage (which always exists)
  tRange = new TextRange;
  oDoc = app.ActiveDoc;
  masterPage = oDoc.FirstMasterPageInDoc;        // Get first master page in document. 
  textFrame = oDoc.NewTextFrame (masterPage.PageFrame); // Add a temporary text frame to the master page. 
  textFrame.Width  = 480 * PT; 
  oPgf = textFrame.FirstPgf; 
  textLoc = new TextLoc (oPgf, 0); 
  oDoc.AddText (textLoc, theString);              // write string into this paragraph
  tRange.beg.obj = oPgf;                          // select this paragraph
  tRange.beg.offset = 0;
  tRange.end.obj = oPgf;
  tRange.end.offset = theString.length;
  oDoc.TextSelection = tRange;
  oDoc.Copy (0);                                  // copy selection to clipboard not interactive
  textFrame.Delete ();                            // delete the text frame
} // --- end CopyToClipboard

[fonrig]

Thanks K.Daube​, this worked perfectly. Thanks frameexpert​ and Ian Proudfoot​ for your suggestions!

[frameexpert]

Instead of using the clipboard, write the text to a file, then read the contents of the file with VB.