How do I yank to system clipboard in Kakoune?

Question

If I yank a word in kakoune, how do I paste it into another editor (e.g. gedit)?

I have read How to make vim paste from (and copy to) system's clipboard? since vim is very similar but kakoune does not have any * register.

Have you checked this [link](https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/wiki/Registers-&-Clipboard) ? — Meninx - メネンックス, Dec 30 '16 at 13:54
Can't you [wait](https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/issues/1099) a bit? — romainl, Dec 30 '16 at 13:54
@romainl I have thought about it but : 1) this kind of question does not fit github issue well 2) there will be probably more people who will be confused as I was — Ford O., Dec 30 '16 at 17:49

harm · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-27T08:04:13.123

10

In case all the links go away this is the complete solution:

<a-|> xsel --input --clipboard <ret>

Explanation:

<a-|> pipes the current selection to what follows.
xsel is a program for manipulating X's clipboard.
--input tells xsel to read from stdin.
--clipboard tells xsel which 'selection' store to use. There are three of them and you want 'clipboard' in order to paste elsewhere.

This will work on Linux. Not sure about MacOS, I'd imagine piping to pbcopy would Just Work.

EDIT: To make live easier define a key binding in User mode like so (in your .kakrc):

map global user y '<a-|>xsel -i -b<ret>'

Now you can select the text and press ,y to yank to the system clipboard. The leading comma tells Kakoune to look for the key binding in User mode.

edited May 27 '19 at 08:04

answered Feb 17 '17 at 11:11

harm

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Actually, `--input` (`-i`) can be omitted. Default behaviour of `xsel` when its stdout and stdin are not tty is to read from stdin, and if stdin is tty then default behaviour is to write to stdout. Also, `--clipboard` can be abbreviated to `-b`. Or omitted altogehter if you want to copy to "primary selection" rather than clipboard. – MarSoft Aug 04 '18 at 16:33
` xsel -i -b` worked for me after installing `xsel`. Wasn't able to shorten it further. It's a shame that it's this complicated for something so simple. – May 24 '19 at 14:36
1

@Joe I've updated my answer to provide a shorter solution. – harm May 27 '19 at 08:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 03 '19 at 18:24

Just so you are aware, there is also a great plugin to help with this issue. Kakboard works everywhere, including Mac, Xorg and even Wayland environments. You can also set your own custom command in more exotic environments by setting the kakboard_(copy|paste)_cmd options.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 20 '18 at 13:43

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So it turns out you need to install xsel and then follow this guide on wiki.

edited Dec 20 '18 at 13:43

Mihai Chelaru

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answered Dec 30 '16 at 17:48

Ford O.

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 08 '21 at 12:37

To add to the accepted answer, according to the documentation if your version of Kakoune is post July 2020 then you can add the following keybinding to your kakrc:

hook global RegisterModified '"' %{ nop %sh{
  printf %s "$kak_main_reg_dquote" | xsel --input --clipboard
}}

How do I yank to system clipboard in Kakoune?

4 Answers4