How To Programmatically Copy an IMG Element to the Clipboard

How To Programmatically Copy an IMG Element to the Clipboard

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Article ID	:	293125
Last Review	:	May 11, 2006
Revision	:	3.0

This article was previously published under Q293125

SUMMARY

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This article illustrates how to programmatically copy an image on a Web page (an IMG element) to the clipboard.

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MORE INFORMATION

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The best way to copy an image on a Web page to the clipboard is to use the execCommand method of the controlRange object. The following code illustrates to do this from within script on the page itself (given the ID of the image to be copied):

   function copyImage(sImgID) 
   {
      var ctrlRange = document.body.createControlRange();
      ctrlRange.add(document.all(sImgID));
      ctrlRange.execCommand("Copy");
   }
				

In Microsoft Visual C++, this method call translates to IHTMLControlRange::execCommand. The following code illustrates how to implement the same technique in Visual C++ given an IDispatch pointer to the document that contains the image and the ID of the IMG element wrapped in a VARIANT structure (with a type VT_BSTR):

   STDMETHODIMP CMyBrowser::CopyImage(LPDISPATCH pDispDoc, VARIANT vImageID)
   {
      HRESULT hr        = E_FAIL;
      IHTMLDocument2* pDoc = NULL;
      IHTMLElement* pelmBody = NULL;
      IHTMLElement2* pelmBodyTwo = NULL;
      IDispatch* pdispImgElement = NULL;
      IDispatch* pdispCtrlRange = NULL;
      IHTMLElementCollection* pColl = NULL;
      IHTMLControlElement* pCtrlElement = NULL;
      IHTMLControlRange* pCtrlRange = NULL;
      BSTR bstrCommand = SysAllocString(L"Copy");
      VARIANT_BOOL vbReturn;
      VARIANT vEmpty;
      VariantInit(&vEmpty);
	
      if (pDispDoc == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;

      if (FAILED(pDispDoc->QueryInterface(IID_IHTMLDocument2, (void**) &pDoc)))
         goto Cleanup;

      if (FAILED(pDoc->get_all(&pColl)))
         goto Cleanup;

      if (FAILED(pColl->item(vImageID, vEmpty, &pdispImgElement)) 
            || pdispImgElement == NULL)	
         goto Cleanup;
	
      if (FAILED(pDoc->get_body(&pelmBody)) || pelmBody == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;
	
      if (FAILED(pelmBody->QueryInterface(IID_IHTMLElement2, (void**) &pelmBodyTwo)) 
            || pelmBodyTwo == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;
	
      if (FAILED(pelmBodyTwo->createControlRange(&pdispCtrlRange)) 
            || pdispCtrlRange == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;
	
      if (FAILED(pdispCtrlRange->QueryInterface(IID_IHTMLControlRange, (void**) &pCtrlRange)) 
            || pCtrlRange == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;

      if (FAILED(pdispImgElement->QueryInterface(IID_IHTMLControlElement, (void**) &pCtrlElement)) 
            || pCtrlElement == NULL)
         goto Cleanup;
	
      hr = pCtrlRange->add(pCtrlElement);

      if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
         hr = pCtrlRange->execCommand(bstrCommand, VARIANT_FALSE, vEmpty, &vbReturn);
	
      pCtrlElement->Release();
      hr = S_OK;

   Cleanup:

      SysFreeString(bstrCommand);

      if (pCtrlRange)
         pCtrlRange->Release();

      if (pdispCtrlRange)
         pdispCtrlRange->Release();
	
      if (pelmBodyTwo)
         pelmBodyTwo->Release();

      if (pelmBody)
         pelmBody->Release();

      if (pdispImgElement)
         pdispImgElement->Release();

      if (pColl)
         pColl->Release();

      if (pDispDoc)
         pDispDoc->Release();

      return hr;
   }
				

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REFERENCES

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For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/ (http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/)

http://support.microsoft.com/iep (http://support.microsoft.com/iep)