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How can I access the clipboard contents when it is in an unusual format that most programs won't accept (i.e. not easily pasteable)?

I have copied something from a program, supposedly in PDF format, using an undocumented hidden option. I would like to access this data if possible. It cannot be directly pasted into any of the programs I tried, but the data is present in the clipboard, as shown by ClipBook Viewer:

Mathematica graphics

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3 Answers 3

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There are different tools available, but you can try this free tool called clipview:

http://www.peterbuettner.de/develop/tools/clipview/

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    This is a nice program. It turns out the Push in Clip functionality is what I need. It turns out I need to change the description "PDF" to "Portable Document Format" to make it pasteable. Unfortunately this also changes the clipboard contents to what this Clipview program is displaying, which is usually not correct (i.e. it alters and corrupts the data) I guess this warrants another question.
    – Szabolcs
    Commented Jan 14, 2012 at 16:24
  • it seems this tool doesn't support Unicode properly - in some cases it shows question marks instead of text for CF_UNICODETEXT
    – AntonK
    Commented Apr 14, 2023 at 10:42
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There is also the following free tool called InsideClipboard:

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/inside_clipboard.html

screenshot of InsideClipboard

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    nirsoft has a tool for every purpose it seems
    – Sreenikethan I
    Commented May 3, 2022 at 14:33
  • @SreenikethanI I have benefited greatly from Nirsoft and Sysinternals' PsTools (which was later taken over my Microsoft) over the years.
    – mydoghasworms
    Commented May 5, 2022 at 6:06
  • Version 1.20 has two useful enhancements. The bottom status bar now displays the owner of the clipboard (Process Name and Process ID). And if the clipboard is opened/locked and other programs cannot use it, the name and ID of the process who locks the clipboard is displayed (With 'Locked:' prefix).
    – nwsmith
    Commented Aug 8, 2023 at 18:32
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A clipboard content has a display format. The developer who designed the software is supposed to provide that display format. Without it, you cannot view the clipboard content from the clipboard viewer.

Windows clipboard viewer supports 4 display format. For your case, the app doesn't use any of the 4 display format, and the developer didn't provide a display format. As you mentioned, it is undocumented, maybe it never worked.

If you are technical and want to explore the data, the clipboard data is OLE object, you may lookup the COM registry to find out more clue. It is one of the Class IDs in your Windows Registry. Usually starts with the application name, again, it all depends on the developer to write in good faith.

The four display formats are: CF_DSPBITMAP, CF_DSPMETAFILEPICT, CF_DSPTEXT, and CF_DSPENHMETAFILE. These display formats are rendered in the same way as the standard formats, which are: CF_BITMAP, CF_TEXT, CF_METAFILEPICT, and CF_ENHMETAFILE.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/dataxchg/clipboard

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