SnapDocs
A folder of screenshots plus a text file becomes one guide you can email.
Free right now. No account, no card
Preview
1 interface design, then a screenshot of it running. Drag, scroll or use the arrows.
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. here is exactly what to click. 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.
Questions about SnapDocs
What does SnapDocs do?
Take your screenshots, put them all in one folder, and SnapDocs turns them into a finished guide. The web page it makes holds the pictures inside the file itself, so you can email it or put it on a memory stick and it will still work on a computer with no internet. SnapDocs does not take screenshots for you — use whatever your computer already has.
Will SnapDocs delete my files?
No. Anything SnapDocs takes away is moved into a folder you choose, with its path kept, so you can look through it and put anything back. It also prints the entire plan first and stops until you tell it to go ahead.
Does SnapDocs send anything over the internet?
No. There is no network code compiled into SnapDocs at all, nothing in the binary can open a socket. 88 of the 100 programs here are like that.
Does SnapDocs run on a Mac?
Yes. There are builds for Apple Silicon and for Intel Macs, as well as for Windows and Linux, one file each, with no installer and nothing to uninstall.
Is SnapDocs free?
Yes, while Techlosoft is in preview: no account, no card, and nothing switched off. Later it is part of a plan covering all 100 programs rather than sold on its own, and anything you download now carries on working.
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...
DocSnap
Vertical ReadyTwenty ticket screenshot folders in, twenty step-by-step docs out, one command.
CaptureFlow
Pro ReadyRedact forty support screenshots identically, because the coordinates live in a file.
StepShot
Team ReadyScreenshots 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.
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