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Asked: 2013-01-09 16:30:06 +0800 CST

How does copy-paste work with xterm?

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Left-down-clicking in xterms starts the selection of something to be copy-pasted.

Double-left clicking selects a word.

Triple-left clicking selects a line.

All this works under unity in 11.04. However, there is no way to copy-paste that selection to another place: The right-click menu shows paste disabled, and middle-clicking to copy-paste does not work.

So how can I copy a selection from an xterm into another place? I am happy with any method to perform this.

(I am using the default-installation no special configuration so far)

Edit: Same problem with xedit

unity

13 Answers

  1. Use middle click or Shift + Insert

    See X Window selection.

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  2. Xterm uses cut buffers, not the standard X11 clipboard selection used for standard copy-paste that gnome-terminal and most other Linux programs now use.

    But if you start xterm like this:

    xterm -ls -xrm 'XTerm*selectToClipboard: true'&

    then selections are available via the standard clipboard.

    Read more at Copying and Pasting in Xterm | StarNet Knowledge Database - PC X, X Windows, X 11 & More - StarNet

    The xcb program also provides command-line access to the cut buffers.

    E.g. in Trusty Tahr 12.04, running lxde window manager, I can triple click on a line of text in xterm, which highlights it and puts it in cut buffer 0. I can then run xcb -p 0 which prints the line out on stdout.

    For some reason it didn't work for me to click both buttons (simulating middle click) in an xterm, but shift-insert did work in an xterm.

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  3. To copy between xterm and other programs/documents/...

    Add to the file ~/.Xresources (or create):

    XTerm*selectToClipboard: true

    Then run the command: 

    xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

    Restart xterm.

    • 16

  4. A similar issue is discussed here. As "strings" pointed out:

    X has two clipboards if you select something in xterm, it will goto the cut buffers, in which case you can paste with middle click or shift+insert. which is not the same concept as copy an paste.

    Copy/paste within xterm worked for me but not to an application outside, example gedit. As per the link above, I installed parcellite and that fixed the problem,

    sudo apt-get install parcellite

    Update: If "paste" does not work with "shift-insert", then use the middle mouse button or if you do not have one click both the left and right buttons simultaneously to paste.

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  5. When you copy from xterm, just use

    shift + middle click

    to paste something into gedit or some editor in xterm like mcedit

    • 6

  6. To copy text in Xterm first select the text and then press shift+PrtScr. To paste text in Xterm use shift+Insert .

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  7. This does not quite answer your question, but it helped me, so am putting it here as it may help someone else:

    1. Copy what you want from xterm by selecting your text
    2. Open a second copy of xterm and your favorite text editor (I use vim)
    3. Use Shift+Insert (or middle-click) to paste into your text editor
    4. Save the file.
    5. If necessary open the file with a graphical text editor (such as gedit)
    6. Copy your text and paste it into the application that you want.
    • 4

  8. Xterm uses the primary X11 selection, which is different to the clipboard. The program xsel can be used to copy the primary selection into the clipboard:

    xsel -op | xsel -ib

    In order to do so I have defined Meta-c in Fluxbox for this.

    Mod4 c :Exec xsel -op | xsel -ib

    This is handy for Windows programs, which support only one clipboard (for example VirtualBox).

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  9. When you select text, it's put automatically in the cut buffer (like a clipboard). When you use Copy, from a menu, or with a keyboard shortcut, it goes into the main clipboard.

    To paste from the cut buffer into your xterm, middle-click. To paste from the clipboard into your xterm, shift middle-click.

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  10. See here for an explanation of paste problems with xterms and modern apps/window managers: http://www.davidsimmons.com/soft/xtermhacks/#copynpaste

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