Free while we’re in preview

Get SnapDocs

A folder of screenshots plus a text file becomes one guide you can email.

The Mac button is for Apple Silicon. On an older Intel Mac, get this one instead.

One file, both ways. Double-click it for the window. Run the same file from a command prompt with arguments and it behaves as the command-line tool, because the engine is inside it. Nothing else to download and nothing to keep beside it.

Early preview. The window has been built and run, but not yet on a real Windows PC or Mac, so expect rough edges. The engine underneath it is fully tested.

One file — no installer
Runs on your machine, offline
Source code published below

Free while in preview. It isn’t signed yet, so Windows or macOS will ask you to confirm the first time you open it. At launch, SnapDocs is included in every plan along with the rest of the range.

You take the screenshots

Win+Shift+S, Cmd+Shift+4, whatever you already use. Save them into one folder, named so they sort into the right order, then:

snapdocs init ./shots `--apply`
snapdocs build ./shots `--steps` steps.txt `--out` guide.html `--apply`

There’s no capture code in snapdocs and there won’t be in 1.0. It reads PNG, JPEG and GIF, and it never talks to the screen or the clipboard.

The steps file is plain text

Three keys per stanza: image, title, body. A blank line ends the step. Any line that doesn’t start with one of those keys continues the previous value, so a body can run for paragraphs. snapdocs check tells you which step points at an image that isn’t there, which screenshot nobody wrote a step for, and which title you left blank.

One file, and it opens anywhere

The HTML output is a single document. Every image is inlined as a base64 data URI, the stylesheet sits in one style block, and there’s no script tag, no link, no url(), nothing that reaches for a network. Mail it, carry it on a stick, open it on a machine with no internet.

Base64 adds about a third to the image bytes, so a hundred large captures makes a file some mail systems will bounce. Markdown mode exists for exactly that.

Reading on the job itself

How to turn a folder of screenshots into a written guide Put the images in a folder and the captions in a plain text file beside them, one stanza per image. Then re...

The rest of Screenshot to Documentation

A folder of screenshots and a guide somebody can follow. Write it up, check the captions, cover the private bits, mark up the steps.

DocSnap

Vertical Ready

Twenty ticket screenshot folders in, twenty step-by-step docs out, one command.

CaptureFlow

Pro Ready

Redact forty support screenshots identically, because the coordinates live in a file.

StepShot

Team Ready

Screenshots plus a manifest become a Word file with the arrows already drawn.

Advanced & technical details Command-line builds, source code, checksums and a recorded session — for developers and IT teams

A working desktop prototype of the doc-assembly engine: point it at a folder of screenshots plus a plain-text steps file and it builds one self-contained HTML guide with every image embedded as a data URI, so the file can be emailed and opens offline with no server. Verified by decoding the embedded images back out — each matches its source dimensions and pixels exactly. It does not capture screenshots itself; native capture and OCR need OS APIs and are on the roadmap.

Naming status

Working name only — brand verdict **AVOID** (Very High). Collision: Snapdocs. Rename completely.

What it draws on

Existing paid software whose best ideas shaped this program: Snagit, Screenpresso Pro, FastStone Capture, ClipboardFusion Pro.

Command line

There is nothing extra to install. The program you download is the command-line tool as well: give it arguments instead of double-clicking it and it runs as one, with its output on your terminal. The standalone builds below are the same engine on its own, for machines where you would rather not ship a window at all.

snapdocs 1.0.0 - turn a folder of screenshots into one self-contained document

USAGE
  snapdocs init  <dir> [--steps <file>] [--force] [--apply]
  snapdocs build <dir> --steps <file> --out <file> [options]
  snapdocs check <dir> --steps <file>
  snapdocs help

COMMANDS
  init    Scan <dir> for images in sorted order and write a starter steps file
          with one empty stanza per image, ready to fill in.
          DRY RUN unless --apply is given.
  build   Read the steps file, pair each stanza with its image and write the
          finished document. DRY RUN unless --apply is given.
  check   Validate a steps file against <dir> without writing anything.
          Exits 1 if any problem is found. Always read-only.

OPTIONS
  --steps <file>   Steps file to read (build/check) or write (init).
                   Default "steps.txt". A relative path is tried as given
                   first, then relative to <dir>.
  --out <file>     Path of the document to write (build only, required).
  --format <fmt>   "html" (default) or "md". If --format is not given it is
                   inferred from the --out extension (.md/.markdown -> md).
  --title <T>      Document title. Default "Documentation".
  --author <A>     Author line printed under the title. Optional.
  --force          Allow an existing output file to be replaced. The old file
                   is first renamed aside to <name>.bak-<timestamp>; snapdocs
                   never deletes anything.
  --apply          Actually write files. Without it nothing is created.
  -h, --help       Show this help and exit 0.

STEPS-FILE FORMAT
  Plain text. One stanza per step, stanzas separated by one or more blank
  lines. A stanza is a set of "key: value" lines. Three keys are recognised:

      image: shot1.png        (required) file name of the screenshot,
                              relative to <dir>
      title: Open Settings    (required) short heading for the step
      body:  Press Win+I ...  (optional) explanatory text for the step
...

Recorded from the shipped binary, not written by hand.

Windows (amd64) macOS (Apple Silicon) macOS (Intel) Linux (amd64)

Source

Every file the program is built from:

console.go · console_test.go · guided.go · main.go

SHA-256 checksums · build instructions & scope notes · full build plan

SnapDocs

Preview