Copy TextField or TextArea text to Clipboard

Is there a way to copy the selected text (or all text) of a TextField or TextArea to the system clipboard? I'd like to provide a GUI.Button with this functionality.

Under OS X, I can select a portion of the TextArea text, and press Command-C to copy it to the OS clipboard, which I can then paste into an email or text editor.

Is there any way to simulate the keyboard combo, or are there any built in function in Unity, Mono, or C# that would allow this functionality?

It would be great if I could capture only the selected portion of the Text controls, although just grabbing everything would be okay at this point.

 

Well, you can definately put stuff into the clipboard with .NET, however, I don't know if you can do it in Mono. This code works for my C# project, but I can't seem to use it in Unity for some reason.

Code (csharp):

1. System.Windows.Clipboard.SetText("Sample paste");

If you still want to dig deeper, here's a tutorial and a link to the documentation at msdn.

Good luck, and if you can get it to work in Unity please reply to this thread, I'm curious

 

I want to do something very similar, did you ever find a way to do this, even in U3 you don't seem to be able to import the clipboard class.

 

Anyone now know how to copy to Clipboard in Mono?

 

reviving an old thread,

did anyone ever figure this out?

 

I am also looking for a way to just get the selected text within a text area.

 

I had to do a bit of digging to find this, and since this thread came up earlier in the search:
EditorGUIUtility.systemCopyBuffer

 

This week I started to mess around with EditorGUI code, learning how to build custom windows, etc.
I managed to support proper copy/paste functionality to my custom window, but I can't find a way to make a copy of the current highlighted text, I can only copy the whole content of the textArea in such custom window.
Does anyone knows if it's possible to copy only the highlighted text piece? I have no idea if it is possible, I can't do it.

Edit: Unity's support says it is not possible to copy highlighted text in the Editor. sigh

 

Unity REALLY needs to document this - there are a lot of questions on the forum about working in GUI textfields / textareas that can be answered with this bit of code:

Code (csharp):

1. function OnGUI(){
2.  
3.     // be sure to check if your textfield has keyboard focus first - -
4.     var te : TextEditor = GUIUtility.GetStateObject((TextEditor), GUIUtility.keyboardControl);
5.  
6.     // the TextEditor class is really very nice - you can control selections, move the cursor and a whole lot more
7.     if (te != null){
8.         print(te.SelectedText);
9.     }
10. }

TextEditor is a sweet class and gives you a ton of functionality - copying, pasting, moving words, controlling the cursor and selection, and a whole lot more. Unfortunately, there is NO documentation and you have to rely on autocomplete or reflection to figure out what your options are.
So please, spread the word!

 

Hello,
I found two ways for setting text in the clipboard:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. Type T = typeof(GUIUtility);
3. PropertyInfo systemCopyBufferProperty = T.GetProperty("systemCopyBuffer", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
4. systemCopyBufferProperty.SetValue(null, "bla bla", null);
5.  

BUT, this first one does not work in web player... TheCheese's method is better, as it also works in webplayer mode (thx !).

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. TextEditor te = new TextEditor();
3. te.content = new GUIContent("bla bla");
4. te.SelectAll();
5. te.Copy();
6.  

 

Awesome, that worked!

 

I haven't had any luck trying to get Sat's code to work on iOS. From the editor it seems to work exactly as wanted but when built onto an iPad the system/device clipboard doesn't seem to get updated. Any ideas?

 

I just posted a cross-platform plugin to solve this mess thing. See it here in Asset Store, which could support iOS, Android, WP and some desktop platforms. It exposes the same API for all, and I hope it could make your life easier.

 

Unfortunately as of version 4.6 you can no longer use Texteditor version as pasted above in the web player

@onevcat does your solution support the web player? You seem to list everything but that one.

 

...And what about GUIUtility.systemCopyBuffer? Does that work reliably, even in the modern era of Unity.UI?

(At the moment, I'm really looking for a way to get/set the clipboard in a web plugin app.)

 

Is there a way to copy to clipboard in mobiles???

 

You need to use a plugin from the asset store or roll your own

 

Thanks much for this post. In Unity 5.3.4, the log indicates that "content" is obsolete. Instead of this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. te.content = new GUIContent("blah blah");
3.  

one now uses this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. te.text = "blah blah";
3.  

Other than that, the second method was exactly what I needed!

 

thanks syscrusher super helpful

 

Hello, how i can use this in my project?.... i need to atach to input gameobject?

 

Can you ask the question more specifically, please? We need to understand the context of your question, that is, what you are trying to do in your code. Thanks.

 

Hey, I applied the technique proposed here to a small snipped for use in UI:

Code (csharp):

1. /// <summary>
2. /// Add copy-paste functionality to any text field
3. /// Returns changed text or NULL.
4. /// Usage: text = HandleCopyPaste (controlID) ?? text;
5. /// </summary>
6. public static string HandleCopyPaste(int controlID)
7. {
8.     if (controlID == GUIUtility.keyboardControl)
9.     {
10.         if (Event.current.type == EventType.KeyUp && (Event.current.modifiers == EventModifiers.Control || Event.current.modifiers == EventModifiers.Command))
11.         {
12.             if (Event.current.keyCode == KeyCode.C)
13.             {
14.                 Event.current.Use();
15.                 TextEditor editor = (TextEditor)GUIUtility.GetStateObject(typeof(TextEditor), GUIUtility.keyboardControl);
16.                 editor.Copy();
17.             }
18.             else if (Event.current.keyCode == KeyCode.V)
19.             {
20.                 Event.current.Use();
21.                 TextEditor editor = (TextEditor)GUIUtility.GetStateObject(typeof(TextEditor), GUIUtility.keyboardControl);
22.                 editor.Paste();
23. #if UNITY_5_3_OR_NEWER || UNITY_5_3
24.                 return editor.text;
25. #else
26.                 return editor.content.text;
27. #endif
28.             }
29.             else if (Event.current.keyCode == KeyCode.A)
30.             {
31.                 Event.current.Use();
32.                 TextEditor editor = (TextEditor)GUIUtility.GetStateObject(typeof(TextEditor), GUIUtility.keyboardControl);
33.                 editor.SelectAll();
34.             }
35.         }
36.     }
37.     return null;
38. }
39.  

Then just make a wrapper around your textfield (or any other keyboard control):

Code (csharp):

1. /// <summary>
2. /// TextField with copy-paste support
3. /// </summary>
4. public static string TextField(string value, params GUILayoutOption[] options)
5. {
6.     int textFieldID = GUIUtility.GetControlID("TextField".GetHashCode(), FocusType.Keyboard) + 1;
7.     if (textFieldID == 0)
8.         return value;
9.  
10.     // Handle custom copy-paste
11.     value = HandleCopyPaste(textFieldID) ?? value;
12.  
13.     return GUILayout.TextField(value, options);
14. }

Should theoretically work down to Unity 5.0 and on all platforms
Hope that helps!
Seneral

 

I believe line 13 should be:

Code (CSharp):

1.     return GUILayout.TextField(value, options);

 

Are you able to get this to work on WebGL?
The code seems to work but the text is always empty. As if the clipboard was returning empty.
Anyone else having this issue?

 

Thanks for the note, fixed Also added option to select all with 'Ctrl+A'.

Hm, works for me in my Node Editor WebGL...
Does it work on other platforms?

 

So I found that I can copy and paste with in the WebGL app, From textarea to textarea or text fields. But not copy from outside the app. Say from a text file and into the Text Ares of the app

 

Can i Copy -Paste Some text from My webGL app to clipboard like in Email or text editor,
Or from email or notepad to my Text area in WebGl app. ?
currently i'm just copy and paste into webGl app only not outside the app .
Can anyone help on that ?

 

1. 
   
   Code (CSharp):

   1.  void CopyToClipboard(string s) {
   2.          TextEditor te = new TextEditor();
   3.          te.text = s;
   4.          te.SelectAll();
   5.          te.Copy();
   6. }
   7.   //Calling the method
   8.   CopyToClipboard("Hello World");

 

Use an Input Field, turning the background color transparent
Unity - Selectable UI Text - YouTube