Copy to clipboard

Simple module exposing copy function that will try to use execCommand with fallback to IE-specific clipboardData interface and finally, resort to usual prompt with proper text content and message.

Example

import copy from 'copy-to-clipboard';

copy('Text');

// Copy with options
copy('Text', {
  debug: true,
  message: 'Press #{key} to copy',
});

API

copy(text: string, options: object): boolean — tries to copy text to clipboard. Returns true if no additional keystrokes were required from user (so, execCommand, IE's clipboardData worked) or false.

|Value |Default |Notes| |------|--------|-----| |options.debug |false| Boolean. Optional. Enable output to console. | |options.message|Copy to clipboard: #{key}, Enter| String. Optional. Prompt message. * | |options.format|"text/html"| String. Optional. Set the MIME type of what you want to copy as. Use text/html to copy as HTML, text/plain to avoid inherited styles showing when pasted into rich text editor. |

* all occurrences of #{key} are replaced with ⌘+C for macOS/iOS users, and Ctrl+C otherwise.

Browser support

Works everywhere where prompt* is available. Works best (i.e. without additional keystrokes) in Chrome, FF, Safari 10+, and, supposedly, IE/Edge.

Note: does not work on some older iOS devices.
* – even though Safari 8 has prompt, you cannot specify prefilled content for prompt modal – thus it doesn't work as expected.

Installation

• Can be used as npm package and then leveraged using commonjs bundler/loader:

npm i --save copy-to-clipboard

• Can be utilized using wzrd.in. Add following script to your page:

<script src="https://wzrd.in/standalone/copy-to-clipboard@latest" async></script>

You will have window.copyToClipboard exposed for you to use.

UI components based on this package:

• react-copy-to-clipboard
• copy-button

See also:

• clipboard-copy by @feross
• MDN
• April 2015 update on Cut and Copy Commands

Running Tests

This project has some automated tests, that will run using nightwatch on top of selenium.

npm i
npm test

Typescript

This library has built-in Typescript definitions.

import * as copy from 'copy-to-clipboard';