Accessing Windows Clipboard Text in Python

Retrieving text from the Windows clipboard is a common task in programming. This article explores how to accomplish this using Python's win32clipboard module.

pywin32 and win32clipboard

The win32clipboard module is part of pywin32, a library that provides access to Windows API functions. It enables Python scripts to interact with the clipboard, allowing for both reading and writing of data.

Reading Clipboard Text

To read text from the Windows clipboard, follow these steps:

1. Import the module: Begin by importing the win32clipboard module.
2. Open the clipboard: Call the OpenClipboard() function to open the clipboard for access.
3. Empty the clipboard (optional): If desired, use the EmptyClipboard() function to clear any existing clipboard data.
4. Set clipboard text (example): For demonstration purposes, use the SetClipboardText('testing 123') function to set the clipboard text to the string "testing 123".
5. Get clipboard data: Call the GetClipboardData() function to retrieve the current clipboard data.
6. Close the clipboard: Call the CloseClipboard() function to close the clipboard, making it available to other applications.

Example Code

The following code demonstrates how to use the win32clipboard module to read text from the Windows clipboard:

import win32clipboard

# Open the clipboard
win32clipboard.OpenClipboard()

# Get clipboard data
data = win32clipboard.GetClipboardData()

# Close the clipboard
win32clipboard.CloseClipboard()

# Print the clipboard data
print(data)

Important Note

Remember to close the clipboard after accessing it by calling CloseClipboard(). This ensures that other applications can access the clipboard as needed. Failure to close the clipboard can lead to unexpected behavior.