ACC: How to Send Information to the Clipboard (95/97) (138909)

SUMMARY

Microsoft Access does not have a command that sends information to the Clipboard. To post information to the Clipboard, you need to define a Visual Basic for Applications function that calls several Windows API functions. This article shows you how to create a function that copies text to the Clipboard.

NOTE: In version 2.0, you can use the OLE_COPY action to copy an OLE field to the Clipboard. This article does not address that case.

This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to your version of the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access" manual.

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To copy information to the Clipboard, follow these steps.

NOTE: You may have some Microsoft Windows API functions defined in an existing Microsoft Access library; therefore, your declarations may be duplicates. If you receive a duplicate procedure name error message, remove or comment out the declarations statement in your code.

Create a module and type the following lines in the Declarations section:

      Declare Function GlobalUnlock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) _
         As Long
      Declare Function GlobalLock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) _
         As Long
      Declare Function GlobalAlloc Lib "kernel32" (ByVal wFlags As Long, _
         ByVal dwBytes As Long) As Long
      Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "User32" () As Long
      Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "User32" (ByVal hwnd As Long) _
         As Long
      Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "User32" () As Long
      Declare Function lstrcpy Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpString1 As Any, _
         ByVal lpString2 As Any) As Long
      Declare Function SetClipboardData Lib "User32" (ByVal wFormat _
         As Long, ByVal hMem As Long) As Long

      Public Const GHND = &H42
      Public Const CF_TEXT = 1
      Public Const MAXSIZE = 4096

Type the following procedure:

      Function ClipBoard_SetData(MyString As String)
         Dim hGlobalMemory As Long, lpGlobalMemory As Long
         Dim hClipMemory As Long, X As Long

         ' Allocate movable global memory.
         '-------------------------------------------
         hGlobalMemory = GlobalAlloc(GHND, Len(MyString) + 1)

         ' Lock the block to get a far pointer
         ' to this memory.
         lpGlobalMemory = GlobalLock(hGlobalMemory)

         ' Copy the string to this global memory.
         lpGlobalMemory = lstrcpy(lpGlobalMemory, MyString)

         ' Unlock the memory.
         If GlobalUnlock(hGlobalMemory) <> 0 Then
            MsgBox "Could not unlock memory location. Copy aborted."
            GoTo OutOfHere2
         End If

         ' Open the Clipboard to copy data to.
         If OpenClipboard(0&) = 0 Then
            MsgBox "Could not open the Clipboard. Copy aborted."
            Exit Function
         End If

         ' Clear the Clipboard.
         X = EmptyClipboard()

         ' Copy the data to the Clipboard.
         hClipMemory = SetClipboardData(CF_TEXT, hGlobalMemory)

      OutOfHere2:

         If CloseClipboard() = 0 Then
            MsgBox "Could not close Clipboard."
         End If

         End Function

To test this function, type the following line in the Debug window, and then press ENTER.
? ClipBoard_SetData("To Clipboard")
Type CTRL+V (the shortcut for Paste) and note that "To Clipboard" is pasted into the Debug Window from the Clipboard.

ACC: How to Send Information to the Clipboard (95/97) (138909)

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