How to get the contents of clipboard in a variable?

Question

If I copy something into the clipboard then use var=Paste[]; I get Null in the var and the clipboard content is printed on the next cell. How do I get the content of the clipboard directly into the variable.

I have a basic text in my clipboard and want it stored as a string.

Moreover Windows 10's clipboard now supports multiple entries. Is there a way to select entries other than the last one?

Answer 1

To get the last entry in clipboard you can use:

var = ToExpression[NotebookGet[ClipboardNotebook[]][[1, 1, 1, 1]]]

This works in version 9 / windows 10 (64bit).

Answer 2

This is perhaps a partial answer; it shows that using ctrl+v rather than Paste[] allows an expression to be assigned to a variable as required.

As an example, enter

Red[]

Shows red box.

Select the box then use Paste from the context menu to copy it to the clip-board; then enter

x = Paste[]
x // FullForm

This shows x = Null.

Next, enter

y=

then type ctrl+v

This gives the red box as expected; enter

y // FullForm

This gives RGBColor[1,0,0], which shows that the expressions has been passed to y as required.

Answer 3

Actually, there is an undocumented function for this purpose:PastContent[]