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

• Microsoft Access versions 7.0, 97

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.

MORE INFORMATION

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.

1. 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 

2. 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 

3. 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.

REFERENCES

For more information about declaring Windows API functions, search for "Declare Statement" and then "Declare Statement" using the Microsoft Access 97 Help Index.

Additional query words:

Keywords          : kbprg 
Version           : WINDOWS:7.0,97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbhowto 

Last Reviewed: August 5, 1999