The only real trick here is to decorate the class that you want to use with the Serializable attribute. That allows the clipboard to serialize and deserialize instances of the class. The following code shows this example's Person class.

[Serializable()]
class Person
{
    public string FirstName;
    public string LastName;
}

To copy an object to the clipboard, simply call the Clipboard object's SetDataObject method.

// Copy a Person to the Clipboard.
private void btnCopy_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Person person = new Person() { FirstName = txtFirstName.Text, LastName = txtLastName.Text };
    Clipboard.SetDataObject(person);
}

The following code shows how the program pastes an object from the clipboard.

// Paste the person from the Clipboard.
private void btnPaste_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    IDataObject data_object = Clipboard.GetDataObject();
    if (data_object.GetDataPresent("howto_clipboard_objects.Person"))
    {
        Person person = (Person)data_object.GetData("howto_clipboard_objects.Person");
        txtDropFirstName.Text = person.FirstName;
        txtDropLastName.Text = person.LastName;
    }
    else
    {
        txtDropFirstName.Clear();
        txtDropLastName.Clear();
    }
}

First the code uses the GetDataPresent method to see if the clipboard is holding an object of the correct type. Notice that the object's type name includes its namespace.

If there is an object of the right class present, the program uses the Clipboard's GetData method to get it.