Copy Text file Contents to Clipboard via Right-Click Menu

To copy the contents of a text-based file, you open the file in an editor such as Notepad, use Select All and then copy the contents to the clipboard. How about accomplishing it using a command in the right-click menu?

Add “Copy to Clipboard” to the Context Menu

1. Start the Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2. Go to the following branch:

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\text\shell

3. Create a subkey named “Clipboard“
4. Double-click (default) and set “Copy to Clipboard” as its data.
5. Under “Clipboard”, create another subkey named “command“
6. With the “command” key selected, double-click (default)

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\text\shell\Clipboard\command

7. Set the (default) value data to:

   cmd.exe /c type "%1" | clip.exe

8. Exit the Registry Editor.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\text\shell\clipboard]
@="Copy to Clipboard"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\text\shell\clipboard\command]
@="cmd.exe /c type \"%1\" | clip.exe"

The “Copy to Clipboard“ option appears for most of the text-based files (i.e., file types whose PerceivedType registry value is set to “text“) listed below:

.asm, .asmx, .aspx, .c, .cdxml, .cpp, .css, .csv, .cxx, .def, .diz, .h, .hpp, .hta, .htm, .html, .hxx, .inc, .ini, .java, .nvr, .php3, .pl, .plg, .ps1xml, .pssc, .sed, .shtml, .sql, .text, .tsv, .txt, .xml, .xsl

Now, right-click on a text file and choose Copy to Clipboard.

This copies the text file contents to the clipboard. To verify that, you may open Notepad or any other text editor and press Ctrl +V to paste the contents from the clipboard.