Cut copy paste data from Tkinter text widgets

We will copy ( or cut ) data from one Text box and paste the same in another Text widget.

Tkinter select all data from text box and copy or cut to clipboard to paste in another text box

Button b1: Select All Used for selecting all the data in Text box e1.
Button b2: CutCut the selected data of e1 and store in clipboard.
Button b3: CopyCopy the selected data of e1 and store in clipboard.
Button b4: PastePaste the clipboard data inside Text e2.

Selecting text inside Text box

On click of the button b1, the command will trigger the function select_all() .

def select_all(): # to select all text inside Text box 
    e1.tag_add("sel", "1.0","end") # all text selected
    e1.tag_config("sel",background="green",foreground="red")

Cut or Copy the selected text

Data will be shifted to clipboard. Our button b2 will cut the selected text and b3 will copy the selected text.

b2=tk.Button(my_w,text='Cut',command=lambda:cut_select(),
    font=20,bg='lightyellow')

def cut_select(): # Cut the selection of text to clipboard 
    global data 
    if e1.selection_get():
        data=e1.selection_get() # copy selected text to clipboard 
        e1.delete('sel.first','sel.last') # delete selected text

Copy the selected text

b3=tk.Button(my_w,text='Copy',command=lambda:copy_select(),
    font=20,bg='lightblue')

def copy_select(): # copy selected text to clipboard
    global data 
    if e1.selection_get():
        data=e1.selection_get() # copy selected text to clipboard

Pasting data from Clipboard to Text widget

Here e2 is another Text widget where data will be pasted from the clipboard.

b4=tk.Button(my_w,text='Paste',command=lambda:paste_select(),
    font=20,bg='cyan')

def paste_select():
    global data
    e2.insert(tk.END,data) # Paste data from clipboard

Full code is here

import tkinter as tk
my_w = tk.Tk()
my_w.geometry("400x350")  
my_w.title("plus2net.com")  # Adding a title
global data 

l1 = tk.Label(my_w,  text='Name',font=20)  # added one Label 
l1.grid(row=0,column=0,padx=2,pady=10) 

e1 = tk.Text(my_w,font=20,height=4,width=28,bg='yellow') # text box
e1.grid(row=0,column=1,columnspan=4) 

def select_all(): # to select all text inside Text box 
    e1.tag_add("sel", "1.0","end") # all text selected
    e1.tag_config("sel",background="green",foreground="red")

def cut_select(): # Cut the selection of text to clipboard 
    global data 
    if e1.selection_get():
        data=e1.selection_get() # copy selected text to clipboard 
        e1.delete('sel.first','sel.last') # delete selected text 

def copy_select(): # copy selected text to clipboard
    global data 
    if e1.selection_get():
        data=e1.selection_get() # copy selected text to clipboard 
    
def paste_select():
    global data
    e2.insert(tk.END,data) # Paste data from clipboard

b1=tk.Button(my_w,text='Select All',command=lambda:select_all(),
    font=20,bg='lightgreen')
b1.grid(row=1,column=1,padx=2,pady=5)

b2=tk.Button(my_w,text='Cut',command=lambda:cut_select(),
    font=20,bg='lightyellow')
b2.grid(row=1,column=2)

b3=tk.Button(my_w,text='Copy',command=lambda:copy_select(),
    font=20,bg='lightblue')
b3.grid(row=1,column=3)

b4=tk.Button(my_w,text='Paste',command=lambda:paste_select(),
    font=20,bg='cyan')
b4.grid(row=1,column=4)

e2 = tk.Text(my_w,font=20,height=4,width=28,bg='yellow') # added one Entry box
e2.grid(row=2,column=1,columnspan=4,pady=10) 

my_w.mainloop()

Here the data is available within the application. To copy to clipboard and take out we have to use pyperclip library. Install pyperclip

pip install pyperclip

To copy

pyperclip.copy(data)

Include above line inside function ( at the end ) copy_select() and cut_select()
Learn More on Managing Clipboard from Tkinter
Entry Cut copy paste in Entry widgets Python Tkinter Projects Tool to generate Hashtags from a string Spinbox DoubleVar

Python Tkinter Button Python- Tutorials

Subhendu Mohapatra

Author

🎥 Join me live on YouTube

Passionate about coding and teaching, I publish practical tutorials on PHP, Python, JavaScript, SQL, and web development. My goal is to make learning simple, engaging, and project‑oriented with real examples and source code.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel here

Cut copy and paste Data in Text widget

Selecting text inside Text box

Cut or Copy the selected text

Pasting data from Clipboard to Text widget

Subhendu Mohapatra