This article shows how to place a custom table on the
clipboard so that it is recognized by Microsoft Word as a table when pasting
into a document.
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When pasting text into a document, Microsoft Word does not
recognize common table formats such as tab-delimited text and CSV (Comma
Separated Values). However, it does recognize Rich Text Format (RTF). By
building your custom table in RTF and adding it to the clipboard, you can then
paste the information into Word as a properly formatted table.
The
following code demonstrates how to add a table to the clipboard in both RTF and
tab-delimited text so it can be pasted into Microsoft Word and/or Microsoft
Excel:
// Open the clipboard...
if(!OpenClipboard()) {
::MessageBox(NULL, "Cannot open clipboard.", "Error", 0x10010);
return;
}
// Get Clipboard format id for RTF.
UINT cf = RegisterClipboardFormat("Rich Text Format");
// Empty anything already there...
EmptyClipboard();
// *** This section of code adds the RTF table to the clipboard
// *** RTF-Data to put on clipboard
const char *text =
"{\\rtf1\\par "
"\\trowd \\trgaph30\\trleft-30\\trrh262\\cellx980\\cellx1991\\cellx3001"
"\\intbl \\qr \\f0\\fs20 \\cf 1\\cell \\qr 2\\cell\\qr 3\\cell \\intbl \\row"
"\\trowd \\trgaph30\\trleft-30\\trrh262\\cellx980\\cellx1991\\cellx3001"
"\\intbl \\qr \\f0\\fs20 \\cf 4\\cell \\qr 5\\cell\\qr 6\\cell \\intbl \\row}";
// Allocate global memory for transfer...
HGLOBAL hText = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE |GMEM_DDESHARE, strlen(text)+4);
// Put our string in the global memory...
char *ptr = (char *)GlobalLock(hText);
strcpy(ptr, text);
GlobalUnlock(hText);
// Put data on the clipboard!
::SetClipboardData(cf, hText);
// Free memory...
GlobalFree(hText);
// *** Now, add a version of the same data as tab-delimited text...
// *** This will be used by Microsoft Excel
char *text2 = "1\t2\t3\n4\t5\t6";
// Allocate global memory for transfer...
hText = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE |GMEM_DDESHARE, strlen(text2)+4);
// Put our string in the global memory...
ptr = (char *)GlobalLock(hText);
strcpy(ptr, text2);
GlobalUnlock(hText);
// Put data on the clipboard as CF_TEXT
::SetClipboardData(CF_TEXT, hText);
// Free memory...
GlobalFree(hText);
// Close clipboard...
CloseClipboard();
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For more information on using RTF, please see the RTF
specification in the MSDN under "Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification and
Sample RTF Reader Program."
Please be aware that Microsoft does not
provide technical support for the RTF reader code or the RTF specification. If
you have trouble creating RTF syntax, you can always use Microsoft Word to
create some examples for you. Just create a Microsoft Word document with the
type of data you are interested in, save it as RTF and open it in
Notepad.
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