This is a (last resort) way to automate applications that provide no other ways for automation, it would send 'Hello world' to the currently active window. See the manpage (and the -text and -window entries) for how to send special characters and target specific windows. An example: Using xwininfo, I get the id of my XPlanet background window: alanceil@kvirasim:19:51:0:~> xwininfo xwininfo: Please select the window about which you would like information by clicking the mouse in that window. xwininfo: Window id: 0x3600001 "Xplanet 1.2.0" Absolute upper-left X: 0 (..etc..) Now I use xvkbd to tell it to close itself: xvkbd -xsendevent -window 0x3600001 -text "Q" Obviously, the best way is to put these commands in a shellscript - just make sure to include a short sleep (sleep .1 should suffice) after each xvkbd call, or some programs will become confused.

That works in all softs, CLI or GUI... I don't want to waste time to all the time typing the same stuff . So, I have that command in my window manager shortcuts ( meta+l ). All the window managers have editable shortcuts AFAIK. If not, or you don't want to use it that way, you can easily use the xbindkeys soft. I you're using kde4, you can run : systemsettings then open "inputs actions" and create a new shortcut. For Gnome take a look there : http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-create-keyboard-shortcuts-in-gnome/ A more advanced one, with strings and newlines : xvkbd -xsendevent -text "---8<-----\nToday date is: $(date +%Y%m%d)\n---8<-----" For complicated or long paste, you can feed xvkbd with a file : xvkbd -xsendevent -file <file> You can simulate ^C ( control+c ) too or others combinations of keys : xvkbd -text "\C\Ac" There's no man page nor help ( On my Archlinux distro ), but you can see online doc there : http://homepage3.nifty.com/tsato/xvkbd/ Show Sample Output

Press a key automatically via xvkbd.