pbpaste

Paste data from the Clipboard

SYNTAX
      pbpaste [-pboard {general | ruler  |  find  |  font}]
                 [-Prefer  {ascii | rtf | ps}]

Key
   -pboard  Specify a pasteboard to copy to.
            By default the general pasteboard.

   -Prefer  Specify the type of data to look for in the pasteboard.
            (pbpaste normally looks first for  ASCII data)
            In any case, pbpaste looks for the other formats if the preferred one is not found.

Removes the data from the pasteboard and writes it to the standard output. It normally looks first for ASCII data in the pasteboard and writes that to the standard output; if no ASCII data is in the pasteboard it looks for Encapsulated PostScript; if no EPS if present it looks for Rich Text. If none of those types is present in the pasteboard, pbpaste produces no output.

Examples

pbpaste

Look first for RTF:
pbpaste - Prefer RTF

Look first for Encapsulated PostScript:
pbpaste - Prefer ps

"God shows his contempt for wealth by the kind of person he selects to receive it" - Austin O'Malley

Related commands:

pbcopy Copy data to the clipboard
printenv - Print environment variables

Equivalent BASH command: