How Can I Copy String in a variable to clipboard in extendScript?

[Adirai Maji]

I want to copy a string variable to Windows clipboard. How can I do that in extendScript?

It would be better if you can tell me to do the same for MacOS in addition.

Thanks In Advance.

[Mylenium]

You have to call the respective menu commands of the apps.

Mylenium

[Adirai Maji]

No. I wasn't talking about Copy Menu Command.. I'm talking about copy to clipboard function in Extendscript itself. Like say we have a edittext and a button. whenever I press the button. The text in editttext should be copied to clipboard. How can I achieve that?

[Mylenium]

There is no such thing. A clipboard is a system-level mechanism that involves managing memory addresses and such, none of which a script can do. You have to use the host program's features and implement respective stuff. The only other option would be to create your own temporary files and manipulate it, but this will inevitably cause issues if users don't have the respective preferences enabled and security tools interfere.

Mylenium

[Tomas Sinkunas · Accepted solution]

There you go. Works for Win and OSx:

function copyToClipboard(string) {
	var cmd, isWindows;

	string = (typeof string === 'string') ? string : string.toString();
	isWindows = $.os.indexOf('Windows') !== -1;
	
	cmd = 'echo "' + string + '" | pbcopy';
	if (isWindows) {
		cmd = 'cmd.exe /c cmd.exe /c "echo ' + string + ' | clip"';
	}

	system.callSystem(cmd);
}

[Adirai Maji]

Thank you so much.

That works great....!! Only thing I've to modify is in the cmd variable. I need to remove the space in

' | clip"';
//into
'| clip"';

 to avoid additional space in the actual String value.

[arnem55527142]

thanks..

[arnem55527142]

Hi Tomas 
This is nice and works very good, thanks for that.
But for me it works only with non-linebreaked strings.

"test\rtest" outputs "testtest"
"test\ntest" doesn´t change the clipboard at all.
I want to copy the position value of a layer to the clipboard, but to paste it correctly it has to be in this format:

Adobe After Effects 8.0 Keyframe Data

Units Per Second 30
...
...

And I think because this is several lines it doesn´t work with your script.
Do you have idea how to correct that, or even better, how to  copy the position value of a layer directly to the clipboard?
Thanks so much

[dbDavideBoscolo]

This is working nice in AE but not in AI. Do you know why by any chance?

[raymundoo94799354]

How do you do the opposite? Get the clipboard from the system? Trying to do it for ages