AppSuite:Paste inline images

API status: In Development

Abstract: Pasting images is basically supported by any major browser. But there are several difficulties to provide a cross-browser solution. This article covers, how to paste images into the different browsers.

Paste images

If speaking about pasting images, it is important to consider the source where the image was copied. Basically, copying images from an application is possible (for details see Section Applications). It seems like these applications are simply storing the image data in the clipboard which can be accessed by the paste events of the browser.

Pasting images from a folder of the operating system does not work on any tested environment. Whereas OS X does provide the filename and a dummy picture, the clipboard of all browsers on Windows Systems remains empty.

Support

The following table lists all major browsers and their ability to insert pasted images from applications.

browser	paste support (tested version)	specifics
Chrome	43.0.2357.81
Safari	no support in 8.0.6	Does not provide images in clipboardData. After pasting, the browser inserts an img-tag with webkit-fake-url. There is no pure javascript solution to retrieve the image data for upload.
Firefox	38.0.1	Does not provide images in clipboardData. After pasting, the browser inserts an img-tag with base64 encoded src.
Internet Explorer	11.0.9600.16428	IE 10 does not support image pasting.

Applications

This table lists some applications which were tested as copy sources for images. Mainly, OS related applications does are not supported as copy source whereas image viewing/editing related applications are supported.

application	paste support	operating system
Finder	no	OS X
Preview	yes	OS X
Fotos	yes	OS X
Chrome	yes	OS X and Windows
Internet Explorer	yes	Windows
Windows Explorer	no	Windows
Windows Photo Viewer	no	Windows
Paint	yes	Windows
GimP	yes	OS X and Windows