karabiner / capture and fork

The image lands first.

Screenshot Clipboard saves the selected region, places its PNG on the clipboard immediately, and lets local OCR continue in the background to produce a searchable text sidecar.

Replay the capture fork Compare the two clocks

screenshot clipboard / route monitor simulation ready

deterministic simulation

This page uses a synthetic frame and never invokes screen capture, filesystem, OCR, or clipboard APIs.

synthetic frameselection / 960 × 540

RELAY / BUILD RECEIPT Interface state captured

03 nodes ready · local run · 00 errors

fixed demo asset

01
save imagetimestamped PNG
waiting
02
copy imageimmediate clipboard route
waiting
03
write OCR sidecarasynchronous background route
not verified

simulation.ready / synthetic frame / no machine access

one capture / two clocks

Immediate image. Background text.

The tool is deliberately image-first. It does not make the clipboard wait for recognition, and it does not pretend the asynchronous text sidecar has been verified when the script returns.

01 / select

Choose a region

The macOS capture cursor writes a timestamped PNG. Cancelling produces no image and does not replace the clipboard.

02 / preserve

Keep the PNG

The selected image remains under ~/pictures/screenshots/ as the durable source for both downstream routes.

03 / fast path

Copy as an image

AppleScript reads the saved PNG and places its image data on the clipboard without waiting for Tesseract.

04 / background

Start OCR

Tesseract runs asynchronously and writes a matching text sidecar. The current script does not wait for or verify its completion.

image-first output contract

Each artifact keeps its role.

Screenshot Clipboard and OCR share a source pattern but not a delivery contract. Use this tool when the next action needs the image itself; use OCR when the next action needs copied text.

clipboard

PNG image data

The clipboard receives the captured image. Extracted text is never substituted into that fast path.

filesystem

Image plus sidecar

The PNG is saved in the screenshots directory and OCR output targets its txt/ subdirectory.

honest receipt

OCR remains unconfirmed

The script logs that the image was saved and copied. That message is not evidence that background OCR finished successfully.

Do not infer a text guarantee from the sidecar route.

Background recognition may still be running or may produce empty output when the foreground image path has already completed. The page replay preserves that difference instead of turning both lanes green at once.

Need clipboard text? Open OCR

one gesture / dual output

Capture once. Keep both forms.

The registered command is screenshot-save-and-copy. The suggested Karabiner binding is Left Shift + 3, immediately adjacent to the text-first OCR shortcut.

install

Fetch only this tool

$./install.sh screenshot-clipboard

The private-repository installer exposes the script locally without fetching every automation.

dependency

Local Tesseract

$brew install tesseract

OCR uses the local binary. The image-save and clipboard routes rely on built-in macOS tools.

suggested trigger

Left Shift + 3

The shortcut opens the region selector and returns the PNG to the clipboard as soon as the image path finishes.

execution boundary

macOS / local

The real tool can touch the screen, filesystem, and clipboard. This webpage is a synthetic simulation with no such access.

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