Getting selected thing into clipboard c#

Question

My question is how I get selected text or marked text into the clipboard (ex. user have selected some text in web and when he presses CTRL + A + S, what he got selected or marked get into the clipboard).

I already setup the keyboard hook and background running so now I need to get selected thing into the clipboard.

I tried to get the answer on web but almost 90% of them is for a textbox and i don't need it for a textbox.

Thank you for all your answers, -DF

Your problem is two steps. Look up [how to get the text of whatever is selected](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3526483/how-can-an-app-hook-into-text-selection-system-wide), then look up [how to put text in the clipboard](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3546016/how-to-copy-data-to-clipboard-in-c-sharp). — David Sherret, May 26 '16 at 19:36
I think this is the answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/21501291/4835346 I didn't test it though. — not my real name, May 26 '16 at 22:28

Olivier Jacot-Descombes · Answer 1 · 2016-05-27T13:15:36.040

0

You can get the selected text of a TextBox through the property SelectedText.

You can put something on the clipboard using the static method:

Clipboard.SetText(textBox1.SelectedText);

And get text from the clipboard (also the one copied into the clipboard in the browser) with:

if (Clipboard.ContainsText()) {
    textBox1.Text = Clipboard.GetText();
}

See: Clipboard Class.

If you only want to do that on the current form, you can get the current control with the form property ActiveControl. But will have to use different methods for different types of controls in order to get the selected text. Controls deriving from TextBoxBase have a SelectedText property. All controls have a Text property. All controls deriving from ListControl (like ComboBox) have a SelectedValue property. ComboBox has a SelectedItem property.

As you can see, you will have to make experiments and find the strategy which works best.

Also have a look into the Object Browser of Visual Studio, especially into the namespace System.Windows.Forms.

edited May 27 '16 at 13:15

answered May 26 '16 at 19:42

Olivier Jacot-Descombes

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Is any option without making a textbox? – D.Faladore May 26 '16 at 19:46
Yes: `Clipboard.SetText("hello world");` and `string s = Clipboard.GetText();`. A textbox is just one example for a text source or text destination. – Olivier Jacot-Descombes May 26 '16 at 19:47
@OlivierJacot-Descombes I think they want to get the text selection system-wide – David Sherret May 26 '16 at 19:48
Okay Thank You! one more question. How the program will know what is selected? – D.Faladore May 26 '16 at 19:51
Windows does not have a general concept of "selected text". However you might get the handle of the current control on the current window and if this one is a known windows control, you might have a chance to get the selected text. See: [How can I get functionality similar to Spy++ in my C# app?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/1967604/880990), this might help. – Olivier Jacot-Descombes May 26 '16 at 19:55
What about a function called focus or something? – D.Faladore May 26 '16 at 20:12

Getting selected thing into clipboard c#

1 Answers1