26.1.5 Using the Clipboard

Apart from the primary and secondary selection types, Emacs can handle the clipboard selection type which is used by some applications, particularly under OpenWindows and Gnome.

The command M-x menu-bar-enable-clipboard makes the Cut, Paste and Copy menu items, as well as the keys of the same names, all use the clipboard.

You can customize the variable x-select-enable-clipboard to make the Emacs yank functions consult the clipboard before the primary selection, and to make the kill functions to store in the clipboard as well as the primary selection. Otherwise they do not access the clipboard at all. Using the clipboard is the default on MS-Windows and Mac, but not on other systems.