Integrate Emacs copy/paste with System copy/paste

Question

I have (cua-mode t) in my .emacs, so that C-c is copy and C-v is paste just like most other programs on my desktop (Ubuntu, Gnome, Linux). However, Emacs does not seem to share the clipboard/copy buffer with other programs.

For example, if I C-c in Firefox I can S-C-v to paste into a terminal or C-v to paste into gedit. However, if I C-v (or C-y) in emacs, I do not get what I copied from Firefox.

Is there any way to make this work? Is there another command I can use to access the system's copy-paste buffer?

It does share a clipboard with system by the way, but only mouse selection (i.e. what you can paste with a middle-click elsewhere). — , Jul 09 '10 at 20:03
Vim and Emacs questions are generally considered ok for SO as they're programmer's tools. See the various discussions that have already taken place about this on meta. — jamessan, Jul 09 '10 at 20:09
@doublep yes it does seem to use X11 selection buffer, but it doesn't seem to use the clipboard by default. So selecting and middle click work, but copy-paste key-commands don't. — sligocki, Jul 10 '10 at 01:18

score 27 · Answer 1 · answered May 08 '12 at 13:56

27

I had the same problem. I added this to my .emacs file:

(setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
(setq interprogram-paste-function 'x-cut-buffer-or-selection-value)

Now Ctrl-C and Ctrl-v between Emacs and other applications work fine. Source: Ubuntu Forums

answered May 08 '12 at 13:56

Nathan Geffen

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Ah, even better. I only had the first command. But the second helps a problem I'd had, where selecting text and middle clicking in emacs did not copy correctly. Thanks! – sligocki May 08 '12 at 19:01
I am newbie. I created ~/.emacs for the first time. I added your code to ~/.emacs and it works. Thanks. – kenu.heo Mar 04 '14 at 08:17
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This does not seem to be working for Mac OSX; Getting this error. `current-kill: Symbol's function definition is void: x-cut-buffer-or-selection-value` – cevaris Nov 20 '14 at 23:03
I was missing `'` before both those lines when added to `emacs.el` – somethingSomething Jun 01 '15 at 09:33
This does not work for me using Ubuntu 16.04 and Emacs 24. Copying text outside of terminal Emacs and then pasting (or clipboard-yank) inside Emacs doesn't retrieve the right text, even with this enabled. – ely Nov 08 '16 at 13:09

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 20:14

15

See clipboard-yank and clipboard-kill-region in the clipboard section of the manual.

answered Jul 09 '10 at 20:14

jamessan

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1

Great, that's exactly what I was looking for. I added (x-select-enable-clipboard t) to my .emacs file and everything is working like I'd expect. Thank you. – sligocki Jul 09 '10 at 21:20
1

Hm, actually, this isn't exactly right. This will paste from X11 selections. But it's a lot better than it was. – sligocki Jul 10 '10 at 01:19
This is sometimes bound to just `paste` (at least in Ubuntu) – Hut8 May 22 '13 at 17:52

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '14 at 15:05

This works on my machine:

;; CUA OS copypasta even in ncurses mode
(case system-type
  ('darwin (unless window-system
             (setq interprogram-cut-function
                   (lambda (text &optional push)
                     (let* ((process-connection-type nil)
                            (pbproxy (start-process "pbcopy" "pbcopy" "/usr/bin/pbcopy")))
                       (process-send-string pbproxy text)
                       (process-send-eof pbproxy))))))
  ('gnu/linux (progn
                (setq x-select-enable-clipboard t)
                (defun xsel-cut-function (text &optional push)
                  (with-temp-buffer
                    (insert text)
                    (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max) "xsel" nil 0 nil "--clipboard" "--input")))
                (defun xsel-paste-function()

                  (let ((xsel-output (shell-command-to-string "xsel --clipboard --output")))
                    (unless (string= (car kill-ring) xsel-output)
                      xsel-output )))
                (setq interprogram-cut-function 'xsel-cut-function)
                (setq interprogram-paste-function 'xsel-paste-function))))

Nice! This works for C-c/C-x/C-v, but now middle click doesn't share with the system any more. Does middle click still work for you? — sligocki, Jul 08 '14 at 22:38
this only works in the emacs window mode rather than the terminal (-nw) mode, right? — galactica, Jan 05 '15 at 07:37

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 20:17

4

Maybe this EmacsWiki page will help, especially the section where clipboard-kill-region, clipboard-kill-ring-save, and clipboard-yank are mentioned.

answered Jul 09 '10 at 20:17

danlei

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Thanks @danlei, the wiki had some useful advice. – sligocki Jul 12 '10 at 18:01
You're welcome. EmacsWiki is a great source for everything concerning Emacs. – danlei Jul 13 '10 at 15:18

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 14 '16 at 21:47

I solve this problem with autocutsel, which works with emacs and the rest of my Ubuntu system too.

  autocutsel - keep the X clipboard and the cutbuffer in sync

I use the following commands (run once, usually invoked by my window manager's "startup" mechanism, or ~/.xsession):

autocutsel -fork
autocutsel -fork -selection PRIMARY

The first instance of autocutsel does the following:

autocutsel tracks changes in the [X11] server's cutbuffer and clipboard selection. When the clipboard is changed, it updates the cutbuffer. When the cutbuffer is changed, it owns the clipboard selection. The cutbuffer and clipboard selection are always synchronized.

However there's usually a third clipboard, called PRIMARY, which the second instance of autocutsel is used to sync with the other two.

The advantages of this are that the three main clipboards are unified, so that pasting current selection via middle-click or CUA-style copy/paste with CTRL-C and CTRL-V all work together.

The main downside of this approach is that any automatic highlighting of text (such as double-clicking to highlight a word in emacs, or clicking the BlockQuote icon in a StackOverflow edit field) will obliterate your copy buffer instantly. To work around this, I use a clipboard history recorder such as glipper, which also conveniently records all clipboard content and allows me to retrieve lost clipboard contents in such circumstances. It can take a little getting-used-to and works well for me. As an alternative, you could experiment with the -pause option, which waits for some period of time before taking the selection, which may be long enough to deselect or delete any auto-selected text. I wasn't able to get results that worked well enough for me, though.

Note that this solution doesn't require any special emacs configuration, which I use with cua-mode enabled.

Integrate Emacs copy/paste with System copy/paste

5 Answers5

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