Clipboard Formats for Shell Data Transfers

Windows allows the user to transfer data objects between applications and the shell. The user can transfer data objects, such as printers, files, shortcuts, and folders, either by dragging and dropping them or by using the Cut, Copy, and Paste menu commands. Both transfer methods involve the clipboard.

Windows defines several clipboard formats that you must support to transfer objects between your application and the shell. The Windows header files do not include predefined clipboard format identifiers for these clipboard formats. Instead, they provide a set of clipboard format names and corresponding values. To obtain an identifier for a clipboard format, you simply pass the format's value to the RegisterClipboardFormat function. The following table lists the values and corresponding clipboard format names.

The following sections describe the clipboard formats used to transfer data between applications and the shell.