"Paste" string variable in excel VBA instead of the contents of clipboard?

Question

I have a string variable that contains an HTML table in excel VBA. I know that when this table is stored in the clipboard and I invoke .PasteSpecial, Excel does some nifty preprocessing and fills the cells out in the current sheet the same way as they appear in the table.

However, if I simply set the .Value of a cell/range to the string variable, no such preprocessing takes place and the entire string, HTML tags and all, are dumped into the cell. I want the former result, but I cannot use the clipboard because it is being used by this application elsewhere and there is no guarantee I would not overwrite critical data. It is also being used asynchronously so I cannot simply save the current contents of the clipboard, use the clipboard, and then restore the previous contents of the clipboard.

So, is there any way to get the "pasting preprocessing" to occur when setting the value for a range with a formatted string?

Answer 1

I would still be curious to know the answer if anyone has it, but I decided to just go ahead and abandon the idea of storing the table in a worksheet. Instead I parse the table myself and find the values I need using the InStr function (as they are mostly adjacent key=value pairs), which is not terribly slow for my application.

Answer 2

I can't think of anyway to invoke Excel's preprocessor without the clipboard. For parsing, you may want to check out the Split function. Here's an example.

Sub ParseTable()

    Dim sHtmlTable As String
    Dim vaTable As Variant
    Dim i As Long

    Const STDSTART = "<td"
    Const STDEND = "</td"

    sHtmlTable = "<table border=""1""><tr><td>row 1, cell 1</td><td>row 1, cell 2</td></tr><tr><td>row 2, cell 1</td><td>row 2, cell 2</td></tr></table>"

    vaTable = Split(sHtmlTable, ">")

    For i = LBound(vaTable) To UBound(vaTable)
        If vaTable(i) = STDSTART Then
            Debug.Print Replace(vaTable(i + 1), STDEND, "")
        End If
    Next i

End Sub

Answer 3

This is just a comment (stackeoverflow doesn't let me comment the propper way yet).

You probably could do it the way you want using some API.

A long time ago I played with it (looking for some way to cheat MS Word) and I remember that you could store any content to the clipboard, as long as you enter the right id of the content type (like pure text, formated text, html, etc). After storing the content, you must use the respective API function to paste, again, the right type of content.

I didn't make progress as fast as I expected, and I was short of time, so I abandoned the idea. If you would like to give it a chance, look up MSDN for the API calls (I don't have it here right now, otherwise I would give you right away).

EDIT: I found the code. All the code below should be kept in a module:

' Clipboard functions:
Private Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "USER32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "USER32" () As Long
Private Declare Function GetClipboardData Lib "USER32" (ByVal wFormat As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function IsClipboardFormatAvailable Lib "USER32" (ByVal wFormat As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function RegisterClipboardFormat Lib "USER32" Alias "RegisterClipboardFormatA" (ByVal lpString As String) As Long
' Memory functions:
Private Declare Function GlobalLock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GlobalUnlock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GlobalSize Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (lpvDest As Any, lpvSource As Any, ByVal cbCopy As Long)

Public Function GetClipboardIDForCustomFormat(ByVal sName As String) As Long
Dim wFormat As Long
    wFormat = RegisterClipboardFormat(sName & Chr$(0))
    If (wFormat > &HC000&) Then
        GetClipboardIDForCustomFormat = wFormat
    End If
End Function

Public Function GetClipboardDataAsString(ByVal lFormatID As Long) As String
'Public Function GetClipboardDataAsString(ByVal hWndOwner As Long, ByVal lFormatID As Long) As String
Dim bData() As Byte
Dim hMem As Long
Dim lSize As Long
Dim lPtr As Long

    ' Open the clipboard for access:
    If (OpenClipboard(0&)) Then
'    If (OpenClipboard(hWndOwner)) Then
        ' Check if this data format is available:
        If (IsClipboardFormatAvailable(lFormatID) <> 0) Then
            ' Get the memory handle to the data:
            hMem = GetClipboardData(lFormatID)
            If (hMem <> 0) Then
                ' Get the size of this memory block:
                lSize = GlobalSize(hMem)
                If (lSize > 0) Then
                    ' Get a pointer to the memory:
                    lPtr = GlobalLock(hMem)
                    If (lPtr <> 0) Then
                        ' Resize the byte array to hold the data:
                        ReDim bData(0 To lSize - 1) As Byte
                        ' Copy from the pointer into the array:
                        CopyMemory bData(0), ByVal lPtr, lSize
                        ' Unlock the memory block:
                        GlobalUnlock hMem

                        ' Now return the data as a string:
                        GetClipboardDataAsString = StrConv(bData, vbUnicode)

                    End If
                End If
            End If
        End If
        CloseClipboard
    End If
End Function