Copy file to xclip and paste to Firefox

Question

I'm coping file to xclip

cat file.txt | xclip

I'm pasting without problem with

xclip -o

When I want to paste it to Firefox with Ctrl+V it pastes old text (that shouldn't already be in the clipboard).

When I go back to terminal and run xclip -o it pastes the correct text.

Why is there a problem with pasting to Firefox?

Shawn J. Goff · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-12T15:41:20.413

98

X11 has several available clipboards. By default, xclip places data in the primary selection buffer. To paste it, you use middle-click.

If you want to use Ctrl+v, use xclip -selection clipboard. See man xclip for more information.

There is good information about the different clipboards on freedesktop.org.

edited Oct 12 '11 at 15:41

answered Oct 12 '11 at 15:35

Shawn J. Goff

2

On a side note: I just noticed that xclip's option -f, -filter is a built in tee . It writes to the clipboard and to stdout at the same time. That could come in handy (for something). – Peter.O Oct 13 '11 at 07:34
It can be useful to add the file's mimetype: -t $(file -b --mime-type "$1") – Raphael Jan 30 '19 at 08:31
9

xclip -selection clipboard can be shortened to xclip -se c. – Victor Yarema Mar 28 '20 at 18:19

Daniel Andrei Mincă · Answer 2 · 2015-07-17T09:42:53.467

55

Copy to your clipboard with:

xclip -sel clip < ~/path/to/file.txt

and then paste CTRL + V wherever you wish to.

edited Jul 17 '15 at 09:42

answered May 20 '15 at 11:18

4

Note that the shorthand xclip -se c < myfile would also do, since xclip admits abbreviations provided they don't conflict with valid options and keywords (-silent and -selection, for example) – XavierStuvw Jul 16 '18 at 08:34

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 18 '19 at 20:34

5

Add this to to your ~/.bashrc

# now `cclip' can be used when you it to be available to `ctrl-[vxc]'
alias cclip='xclip -selection clipboard'

alternatively, run this:

echo 'alias cclip='"'"'xclip -selection clipboard'"'" >> ~/.bashrc

edited Aug 18 '19 at 20:34

wizonesolutions

answered Feb 25 '15 at 23:38

user3276552

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 09:26

1

$ cat file.txt | xclip -i

xclip will read from stdin with option -i. If you want to copy to clipboard, run command:

$ xclip -o | xclip -sel clip

edited Dec 16 '20 at 09:26

AdminBee

answered Dec 16 '20 at 02:47

4 Answers4