[Screenshot to Clipboard] not working

[PrinceWHS10]

Share -> Copy to clipboard apparently uses a non-standard copy function. (1) The image does not appear on the clipboard, (2) It works in Word and I presume Discord but nowhere else, e.g. WhatsApp, Photoshop, or even Paint, and on Telegram it returns an error with a local URL stating the file is empty

Just need the "copy to clipboard" work as would a normal screenshot or when you copy an image on a Windows system.

[Ben Lubar]

There is no such thing as "the normal way to copy an image to the Windows clipboard", unfortunately. Try copying an image from Microsoft Word to your clipboard and then closing Microsoft Word before pasting it, for example. The image isn't actually in the clipboard, just a note for whichever program that wants to paste the image to contact Microsoft Word for the data. Windows Clipboard is a mess, but it's been like that for decades.

[PrinceWHS10]

Thanks for the response. You can still paste content from the clipboard even after the source app is closed, for example copying an image from Word then closing it.

[Lain Lane]

Ben Lubar, some apps allow you to copy images as bitmaps, and paste them, even after closing the application. Even with your example with Word (or Photoshop, afaik), they allow saving the content to the buffer, taking more time, and consuming some space in your memory (I assume RAM), and (some of those apps) even warn you about this, allowing you to choose whether or not you want to keep this content in the cliboard.

I agree with PrinceWHS10 on the point that copy/pasting doesn't work in the majority of apps (at least in Windows 11), and that pasting does work in Discord, but the copied content doesn't show up in the clipboard history (a feature that was brought somewhere in the Windows 10 release cycle).

Adding to the list Unigram, a UWP application.
And as the counter-example - web-browsers, like Arc (Chromium based).

I assume that the issue is related to the metadata for the image, and not that the clipboard is not updated, from this.

[Lain Lane]

So, after taking a look with some programs that show raw clipboard contents, Steam chose to use CF_HDROP format. This means that instead of loading the bitmap (or, in other words, the contents of the image to the clipboard), instead they store only the location of the image file.

And then it's up to the other programs to handle the CF_HDROP format, and read/load the file from the specified location.

I suppose that *some* apps do support this, but IMO copying images as images is more useful to the end user. If they would've wanted to see the file, they'd use either Save Image, or (now removed) "Show on disk" options. (P.S. I'd suggest bringing it back, because it's just too convenient)

[Lain Lane]

And I suppose that the problem is only that additional metadata is missing for most apps.

For example, copy-pasting one, or even multiple image files from the Explorer (like your Desktop) creates a few more objects in your buffer, like this:
https://pasteboard.co/y7W7Toyo8RzU.png
(I suppose only some types of descriptors are really required for better support of multifile copy-paste, and it should be possible to make a single image copy with a png/jpg/bitmap being loaded into the clipboard)

Copying an image in a web-browser results in a PNG and a Bitmap copy to clipboard, because you can copy one image at a time.

Sorry for sending a lot of messages, but this thing really bugs me, and I didn't look into all the details before posting my first messages.

[PrinceWHS10]

Insightful reply. Thanks! 👍🏻

[PrinceWHS10]

I just noticed and was confirmed in the patch notes that this issue has been resolved. Thanks!

Marked as complete.

Edit: Well, apparently is still doesn't work on WhatsApp Desktop but it does with Telegram and I can now see the screenshot image in the Clipboard.

[Lain Lane]

By the way, it looks like now the red and blue channels are flipped when copied to clipboard (Green remains untouched)

[PrinceWHS10]

Wow, that's right. I only tested it on just a single screenshot with colors that were quite washed out so I didn't actually notice. This kind of makes it even worse than what we had before the patch. 😅