Datagridview to Clipboard with formatting

Question

For a VB.Net application needing to output the data to clipboard, with formatting, I am in need of some help. For now, I am exporting data from the clipboard using

MainView.ClipboardCopyMode = Windows.Forms.DataGridViewClipboardCopyMode.EnableAlwaysIncludeHeaderText
System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard.SetDataObject(MainView.GetClipboardContent())

Now I need to extend this with the formatting / style from the DataGridView. I have read several ExcelExporters, all writing to an Excel file directly, but I need to write to the Clipboard.

The DataGridView exposes nothing other than the DataGridView.GetClipBoardContent() which just gives the raw data. I need to get some XML/HTML/RTF object. I have tried the following:

Dim test As New DataObject
test.SetData(DataFormats.EnhancedMetafile , True, DataGridView1.GetClipboardContent)
Clipboard.SetDataObject(test)

This does not work as of yet. Any tips to easily convert an unbound DataGridView to XML/HTML/RTF/Enhanced Metafile?

Answer 1

If it does not support it natively (which you imply), the best would be to render the content to HTML or RTF. HTML tables would be more suited for Excel and it seems to interpret it fairly well.