How to copy a picture from disk into the clipboard with win32? - winapi

Question

It's easy to copy text into clipboard with win32 API, but I want to copy a picture from disk (for example, D:\1.jpg) into the clipborad.
I search many webpages and I can't find something useful.
Please teach me how to do it.
And no MFC.

Answer 1

You can use Gdi+ to load the image, get HBITMAP, and set the clipboard data. Gdi+ is Unicode only, so if using old ANSI functions you have to convert the filename to wide char. Example in C++:
bool copyimage(const wchar_t* filename)
{
bool result = false;
Gdiplus::Bitmap *gdibmp = Gdiplus::Bitmap::FromFile(filename);
if (gdibmp)
{
HBITMAP hbitmap;
gdibmp->GetHBITMAP(0, &hbitmap);
if (OpenClipboard(NULL))
{
EmptyClipboard();
DIBSECTION ds;
if (GetObject(hbitmap, sizeof(DIBSECTION), &ds))
{
HDC hdc = GetDC(HWND_DESKTOP);
//create compatible bitmap (get DDB from DIB)
HBITMAP hbitmap_ddb = CreateDIBitmap(hdc, &ds.dsBmih, CBM_INIT,
ds.dsBm.bmBits, (BITMAPINFO*)&ds.dsBmih, DIB_RGB_COLORS);
ReleaseDC(HWND_DESKTOP, hdc);
SetClipboardData(CF_BITMAP, hbitmap_ddb);
DeleteObject(hbitmap_ddb);
result = true;
}
CloseClipboard();
}
//cleanup:
DeleteObject(hbitmap);
delete gdibmp;
}
return result;
}
Note that Microsoft recommends using CF_DIB to set bitmap clipboard data, but that doesn't work with GDI+. This example uses CF_BITMAP instead.
Gdi+ uses standard GdiPlus.lib library. It needs to be initialized as follows:
#include <Windows.h>
#include <GdiPlus.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "GdiPlus")//Visual Studio specific
bool copyimage(const wchar_t* filename);
int main()
{
//initialize Gdiplus once:
Gdiplus::GdiplusStartupInput gdiplusStartupInput;
ULONG_PTR gdiplusToken;
Gdiplus::GdiplusStartup(&gdiplusToken, &gdiplusStartupInput, NULL);
copyimage(L"d:\\1.jpg");
Gdiplus::GdiplusShutdown(gdiplusToken);
}