How to copy data to clipboard in C#

Clip.exe is an executable in Windows to set the clipboard. Note that this does not work for other operating systems other than Windows, which still sucks.

        /// <summary>
        /// Sets clipboard to value.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="value">String to set the clipboard to.</param>
        public static void SetClipboard(string value)
        {
            if (value == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Attempt to set clipboard with null");

            Process clipboardExecutable = new Process(); 
            clipboardExecutable.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo // Creates the process
            {
                RedirectStandardInput = true,
                FileName = @"clip", 
            };
            clipboardExecutable.Start();

            clipboardExecutable.StandardInput.Write(value); // CLIP uses STDIN as input.
            // When we are done writing all the string, close it so clip doesn't wait and get stuck
            clipboardExecutable.StandardInput.Close(); 

            return;
        }

If you don't want to set the thread as STAThread, use Clipboard.SetDataObject(object sthhere):

Clipboard.SetDataObject("Yay! No more STA thread!");

On ASP.net web forms use in the @page AspCompat="true", add the system.windows.forms to you project. At your web.config add:

  <appSettings>
    <add key="aspnet:UseTaskFriendlySynchronizationContext" value="false" />
  </appSettings>

Then you can use:

Clipboard.SetText(CreateDescription());

This works on .net core, no need to reference System.Windows.Forms

using Windows.ApplicationModel.DataTransfer;

DataPackage package = new DataPackage();
package.SetText("text to copy");
Clipboard.SetContent(package);

It works cross-platform. On windows, you can press windows + V to view your clipboard history

If you don't want too or cannot use System.Windows.Forms you can use the Windows native api: user32 and the clipboard functions GetClipboardData and SetClipboardDat (pinvoke)

A .NET 6 wrapper library can be found here https://github.com/MrM40/WitWinClipboard/tree/main