putInClipboard method errors on mac

External Since: Nov 12, 2003 Posts: 2

putInClipboard method of the DataObject is putting some invisible
characters on clipboard at the end of the string. I can see these
characters when i paste the clipboard conetents in BBedit. This
happens only on Mac (OSX). I don't have any problem on windows. I
figured out that for every character in the string one invisible
character is added at the end plus two ( if i have 10 character
string, there are 12 invisible characters). Also when I use GetText I
don't get anything. Following is my test code. I appreciate any
suggestions.

Dim data As DataObject
Dim text, rs As String

For i = 1 To 100 Step 1
text = text & "hello"
Next

Set data = New DataObject
data.SetText text
data.PutInClipboard

data.GetFromClipboard
rs = data.GetText
' no text in my immediate window
Debug.Print rs

External Since: Dec 25, 2003 Posts: 551

In article <4b28eff8.0311120740.a6d1a61.TakeThisOut@posting.google.com>,
subrahmanyam.kunala.TakeThisOut@regeneron.com (subra) wrote:

> putInClipboard method of the DataObject is putting some invisible
> characters on clipboard at the end of the string. I can see these
> characters when i paste the clipboard conetents in BBedit. This
> happens only on Mac (OSX). I don't have any problem on windows. I
> figured out that for every character in the string one invisible
> character is added at the end plus two ( if i have 10 character
> string, there are 12 invisible characters). Also when I use GetText I
> don't get anything. Following is my test code. I appreciate any
> suggestions.
>
> Dim data As DataObject
> Dim text, rs As String
>
> For i = 1 To 100 Step 1
> text = text & "hello"
> Next
>
> Set data = New DataObject
> data.SetText text
> data.PutInClipboard
>
> data.GetFromClipboard
> rs = data.GetText
> ' no text in my immediate window
> Debug.Print rs

I can reproduce your results in PutInClipboard, except that I get
the invisible characters plus one extra character, not two (all
Unicode 255). I don't know if this has been bugged before, but I'll
submit it. Please do likewise, using XLv.X's Help/Send Feedback
feature.

AFAIK, the GetText problem's been a bug in MacXL since XL98. I know
that I and others have reported the problem, so perhaps the next
version...

In the mean time, the best workaround I've found is to paste the
contents of the clipboard into a cell in a new workbook, read it
into a string variable, then delete that workbook.

Depending on what you're doing, of course, you may not need to. The
Mac clipboard is persistent - Application.CutCopyMode = False does
not clear it - so you may not need to read it into a dataobject at
all.

For a macro that *does* clear the Mac clipboard, see

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/clearclipboard.html" target="_blank">http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/clearclipboard.html</a>