How to copy text from Emacs to another application

Question

When I cut (kill) text in Emacs 22.1.1 (in its own window on X, in KDE, on Kubuntu), I can't paste (yank) it in any other application.

Answer 1

There is an EmacsWiki article that explains some issues with copy & pasting under X and how to configure it to work.

Answer 2

You might want to specify what platform you are using. Is it on linux, unix, macosx, windows, ms-dos?

I believe that for windows it should work. For MacOSX it will get added to the x-windows clipboard, which isn't the same thing as the macosx clipboard. For Linux, it depends on your flavour of window manager, but I believe that x-windows handles it in a nice way on most of them.

So, please specify.

Answer 3

Hmm, what platform and what version of emacs are you using? With GNU Emacs 22.1.1 on Windows Vista, it works fine for me.

If, by any chance, you are doing this from windows to linux through a RealVNC viewer, make sure you are running "vncconfig -iconic" on the linux box first.....

Answer 4

This works with M-w on Mac OSX. Just add to your .emacs file.

(defun copy-from-osx ()
   (shell-command-to-string "pbpaste"))
(defun paste-to-osx (text &optional push)
   (let ((process-connection-type nil))
      (let ((proc (start-process "pbcopy" "*Messages*" "pbcopy")))
         (process-send-string proc text)
         (process-send-eof proc))))

(setq interprogram-cut-function 'paste-to-osx)
(setq interprogram-paste-function 'copy-from-osx)

Source https://gist.github.com/the-kenny/267162

Answer 5

Insert the following into your .emacs file:

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)

Answer 6

The code below, inspired by @RussellStewart's answer above, adds support for x-PRIMARY and x-SECONDARY, replaces region-active-p with use-region-p to cover the case of an empty region, does not return silently if xsel has not been installed (returns an error message), and includes a "cut" function (emacs C-y, windows C-x).

(defun my-copy-to-xclipboard(arg)
  (interactive "P")
  (cond
    ((not (use-region-p))
      (message "Nothing to yank to X-clipboard"))
    ((and (not (display-graphic-p))
         (/= 0 (shell-command-on-region
                 (region-beginning) (region-end) "xsel -i -b")))
      (error "Is program `xsel' installed?"))
    (t
      (when (display-graphic-p)
        (call-interactively 'clipboard-kill-ring-save))
      (message "Yanked region to X-clipboard")
      (when arg
        (kill-region  (region-beginning) (region-end)))
      (deactivate-mark))))

(defun my-cut-to-xclipboard()
  (interactive)
  (my-copy-to-xclipboard t))

(defun my-paste-from-xclipboard()
  "Uses shell command `xsel -o' to paste from x-clipboard. With
one prefix arg, pastes from X-PRIMARY, and with two prefix args,
pastes from X-SECONDARY."
  (interactive)
  (if (display-graphic-p)
    (clipboard-yank)
   (let*
     ((opt (prefix-numeric-value current-prefix-arg))
      (opt (cond
       ((=  1 opt) "b")
       ((=  4 opt) "p")
       ((= 16 opt) "s"))))
    (insert (shell-command-to-string (concat "xsel -o -" opt))))))

(global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-w") 'my-cut-to-xclipboard)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c M-w") 'my-copy-to-xclipboard)
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c C-y") 'my-paste-from-xclipboard)