Copy two different formats to the clipboard?

[emendelson]

In another thread -

-  I got the answer to the question, how to copy RTF data to the Windows clipboard? Now I have another question, and I think the answer is that I'm trying to do something impossible, but here's the question anyway:

I have two files, one in RTF format, the other in plain text format; both were created by a converter program that converts WordPerfect documents to RTF, text, etc. Can I copy both files to the clipboard, one in RTF format, the other in text format, so that if I then paste the clipboard to a text editor, the plain text version will get pasted, while if I paste the clipboard to an RTF-aware application like Word, the formatted text version will get pasted?

I don't think this is possible, but this forum has plenty of members who can do things that I always thought were impossible, so I thought it would be worth the trouble to ask.

[mLipok]

Oops.

Sorry

Edited December 30, 2016 by mLipok

[careca]

What if you make it so that on a press of a hotkey, the script creates a txt file, and pastes the data there, and at the press of another button, it reads and pastes at cursor?

[genius257]

It is possible to put multiple types in clipboard.

If you want to see an example of multiple types, run the example from _ClipBoard_EnumFormats and copy something from somewhere like Firefox.

Here is a small example

#include <Clipboard.au3>

_ClipBoard_Open(0)
_ClipBoard_Empty()
$iFormat = _ClipBoard_RegisterFormat("Rich Text Format")
$sRTF = FileRead("Document.rtf")
$t=DllStructCreate("WCHAR["&StringLen($sRTF)&"]")
$hT = DllStructGetPtr($t)
DllStructSetData($t, 1, $sRTF)
_ClipBoard_SetDataEx($hT, $iFormat)
$sUnicode = "Document.rtf"
$t2 = DllStructCreate("WCHAR["&StringLen($sUnicode)&"]")
$hT2 = DllStructGetPtr($t2)
DllStructSetData($t2, 1, $sUnicode)
_ClipBoard_SetDataEx($hT2, $CF_UNICODETEXT)
_ClipBoard_Close()

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by genius257

[emendelson]

Thank you for this, but I'm afraid I can't make it work. The RTF data gets pasted with underscores between each character (as if there were some confusion between unicode text and ASCII text), and the plain text doesn't get copied. I tried modifying it with CHAR instead of WCHAR, but that didn't help.

I've tried this with an RTF file created by a DOS application (therefore in raw ASCII text), and also with an RTF creted by Word 2016, but neither one worked. Don't take time over this - I'll continue to experiment.

PS: Careca, thank you for the suggestion, but I'm trying to write a script that saves an RTF file to the clipboard without opening it in any application.

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by emendelson

[genius257]

55 minutes ago, emendelson said:

Thank you for this, but I'm afraid I can't make it work. The RTF data gets pasted with underscores between each character (as if there were some confusion between unicode text and ASCII text), and the plain text doesn't get copied. I tried modifying it with CHAR instead of WCHAR, but that didn't help.

I've tried this with an RTF file created by a DOS application (therefore in raw ASCII text), and also with an RTF creted by Word 2016, but neither one worked. Don't take time over this - I'll continue to experiment.

PS: Careca, thank you for the suggestion, but I'm trying to write a script that saves an RTF file to the clipboard without opening it in any application.

 

my only suggestion would be convert string to binary and use BYTE instead

[emendelson]

I'll give that a try, but meanwhile, I've solved the problem with a kludgy workaround - I open the RTF file with WordPad in a hidden window, send Ctrl-A to select all the contents, Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard, and Alt-F4 to close the window. The clipboard gets RTF and text data, and I don't have to create two files, one text, the other RTF, to get the same result.

But I'll definitely try your suggestion and will report back if it succeeds.

 

[mLipok]

30 minutes ago, emendelson said:

meanwhile, I've solved the problem with a kludgy workaround - I open the RTF file with WordPad in a hidden window, send Ctrl-A to select all the contents, Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard, and Alt-F4 to close the window.

try to use this concept:

Func _RTF_to_CLIPBOARD($sRTF_FileFullPath)
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Create(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_StreamFromFile(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_SetSel(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Copy(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Destroy(...
EndFunc

 

[emendelson]

27 minutes ago, mLipok said:

try to use this concept:

Func _RTF_to_CLIPBOARD($sRTF_FileFullPath)
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Create(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_StreamFromFile(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_SetSel(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Copy(...
    _GUICtrlRichEdit_Destroy(...
EndFunc

 

Thank you - I think that should work - will try it when I get back to my machine. But I think it will raise one issue: this script is designed to work with documents of any length, and _GUICtrlRichEdit_StreamFromFile has a limit that has to be changed with _GUICtrlRichEdit_SetLimit. I suppose I could set it to something like 1,000,000 characters but I'll have to experiment to see whether this is actually feasible. But it certainly seems practical - provided that it copies both RTF and text format to the clipboard.

[mLipok]

Where you ready about this limit ?

[emendelson]

18 minutes ago, mLipok said:

Where you ready about this limit ?

The limit is described here:

https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/libfunctions/_GUICtrlRichEdit_SetLimitOnText.htm

I routinely work with files that have 200,000 characters, sometimes with much more than that.

 

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by emendelson

[iamtheky]

I don't understand the OP.

If you ClipPut RTF data, the Rich Text Formatting is abandoned when you ClipGet it to a plain text editor.  So there is no need to maintain a plain text copy, because those are the only parts that make the trip when you paste outside of an rtf editor.

Is there another behavior I am missing?

Edited December 31, 2016 by iamtheky

[emendelson]

I'm not using ClipGet to retrieve the data that I put into the clipboard. I'm using a script to put data into the clipboard, so that I can press Ctrl-V when running an application and paste the data into the application. ClipGet is not involved anywhere.

Try these two scripts. The first uses ClipPut, and the clipboard interprets the data as raw RTF code, not formatted text:

$outfile = @ScriptDir & "\document.rtf"
$rtfhandle = FileOpen($outfile)
$convtext = FileRead($rtfhandle)
FileClose($rtfhandle)
$ret = ClipPut($convtext)

The second script explicitly copies the data into the clipboard in RTF format, and it pastes correctly into Word, etc., but nothing gets pasted into Notepad, UltraEdit., etc. It appears that the clipboard needs to get data copied to it in both Text and RTF formats if you want to be able to paste into a text editor and a word-processor.

#include <clipboard.au3>
$outfile = @ScriptDir & "\document.rtf"
$rtfhandle = FileOpen($outfile)
$convtext = FileRead($rtfhandle)
FileClose($rtfhandle)
$clipFmt = _ClipBoard_RegisterFormat("Rich Text Format")
$ret = _ClipBoard_SetData($convtext, $clipFmt)

That's why I asked the question. I didn't expect this behavior, but that's what occurs.

Of course, maybe I'm doing everything wrong, in which I hope someone will show me what I should be doing instead.

Edited December 31, 2016 by emendelson

[iamtheky]

and if you use

$rtfhandle = FileOpen($outfile, 128)

?

[emendelson]

10 minutes ago, iamtheky said:

and if you use

$rtfhandle = FileOpen($outfile, 128)

?

Using the first script (with ClipPut), the raw RTF data gets pasted into both text editors and word-processors, not the plain text or the formatted text. Using the second script (with the advanced Clipboard functions), nothing gets pasted into a text editor, and the formatted text is correctly pasted into word processors (exactly the same behavior as when the ", 128" is omitted).

Edited December 31, 2016 by emendelson

[iamtheky]

excellent, so why not selectively put if you can reliably place both on the clipboard.  Is the source long gone by the time you paste it?

[emendelson]

13 minutes ago, iamtheky said:

excellent, so why not selectively put if you can reliably place both on the clipboard.  Is the source long gone by the time you paste it?

The source is long gone by the time the data gets pasted. The script (which works perfectly well with the WordPad->clipboard workaround) does this: it's designed for people who have old WordPerfect files and want to use the content in something else, even if they don't have WordPerfect. The user selects a WordPerfect file, the script runs the vDos DOS emulator, which in turn runs an old DOS-based WordPerfect WP->RTF conversion utility to create a temporary RTF file from the WordPerfect file; the script then copies the contents of the temporary RTF file to the clipboard, deletes the temporary file, and exits. Maybe an hour later, the user pastes the clipboard contents into something - a mail message, a word-processor, etc., etc.

Edited December 31, 2016 by emendelson

[emendelson]

Also, to clarify

18 hours ago, iamtheky said:

If you ClipPut RTF data, the Rich Text Formatting is abandoned when you ClipGet it to a plain text editor.  So there is no need to maintain a plain text copy, because those are the only parts that make the trip when you paste outside of an rtf editor.

Is there another behavior I am missing?

To clarify this: ClipGet doesn't "abandon Rich Text Formatting." What happens is this. When you copy data to the clipboard from a browser or word-processor, the browser puts multiple formats into to the clipboard - typically text, unicode text, RTF, and a few more. You can use _Clipboard_Enum_Formats to see what formats are in the clipboard at any time. When you use ClipGet, it retrieves the text format (if it's already in the clipboard); ClipGet doesn't "abandon" the other formats; it simply doesn't get them. And if the text format has not been explicitly put into the clipboard, then there's no way for ClipGet to get it, because it doesn't exist.

Edited January 1, 2017 by emendelson

[iamtheky]

 

I meant abandon, as in to leave behind.  ClipGet only retrieves the format that is suitable (though I have been playing and cant determine if the default is CF_text or some kind of auto selection) and abandons the others (those formats are not present in the data that you pasted into notepad). 

edit:  I am also liking the way ClipPutFile behaves in word, where local links are pasted in as images, if the email client you are describing is outlook you may get that same behavior.  Am still hunting for an optimal solution though

It seems as though you may be defending that ClipPut fills the clipboard with formatting information, and I agree with that.  Apologies if that seemed in dispute.

Edited January 1, 2017 by iamtheky

[emendelson]

4 hours ago, iamtheky said:

Am still hunting for an optimal solution though

Thank you. My workaround using WordPad really isn't good enough, because WordPad doesn't display footnotes and other features that are supported by the RTF format. I'm still looking for a way to put RTF and Text into the clipboard at the same time, taking them from different files.