ControlSetText

Changes the text of a control.

ControlSetText , Control, NewText, WinTitle, WinText, ExcludeTitle, ExcludeText

Parameters

Control

If blank or omitted, the target window's topmost control will be used. Otherwise, specify either ClassNN (the classname and instance number of the control) or the control's text, both of which can be determined via Window Spy. When using text, the matching behavior is determined by SetTitleMatchMode.

To operate upon a control's HWND (window handle), leave the Control parameter blank and specify ahk_id %ControlHwnd% for the WinTitle parameter (this also works on hidden controls even when DetectHiddenWindows is Off). The HWND of a control is typically retrieved via ControlGet Hwnd, MouseGetPos, or DllCall().

NewText

If blank or omitted, the control is made blank. Otherwise, specify the new text to set into the control.

WinTitle, WinText, ExcludeTitle, ExcludeText

If each of these is blank or omitted, the Last Found Window will be used. Otherwise, specify for WinTitle a window title or other criteria to identify the target window and/or for WinText a substring from a single text element of the target window (as revealed by the included Window Spy utility).

ExcludeTitle and ExcludeText can be used to exclude one or more windows by their title or text. Their specification is similar to WinTitle and WinText, except that ExcludeTitle does not recognize any criteria other than the window title.

Window titles and text are case-sensitive. By default, hidden windows are not detected and hidden text elements are detected, unless changed with DetectHiddenWindows and DetectHiddenText. By default, a window title must start with the specified WinTitle or ExcludeTitle to be a match, unless changed with SetTitleMatchMode.

Error Handling

[v1.1.04+]: This command is able to throw an exception on failure. For more information, see Runtime Errors.

ErrorLevel is set to 1 if there was a problem or 0 otherwise.

Remarks

Most control types use carriage return and linefeed (`r`n) rather than a solitary linefeed (`n) to mark the end of each line. To translate a block of text containing `n characters, follow this example:

StringReplace, MyVar, MyVar, `n, `r`n, All

To improve reliability, a delay is done automatically after every use of this command. That delay can be changed via SetControlDelay.

SetControlDelay, ControlGetFocus, ControlGetText, ControlGet, Control, ControlMove, ControlGetPos, ControlClick, ControlFocus, ControlSend

Examples

Changes the text of Notepad's edit control. This example may fail on Windows 11 or later, as it requires the classic version of Notepad.

ControlSetText, Edit1, New Text Here, Untitled -

Changes the text of the main window's edit control.

#Persistent
ListVars
WinWaitActive, ahk_class AutoHotkey
ControlSetText, Edit1, New Text Here ; Use the window found above.