Personal productivityOriginal Reddit post
Looking for a tool to automate screenshots
I'm trying to screenshot an ebook. So, I'm looking for a tool that can take a screenshot, turn the page, and then take another screenshot of the same section of the screen, and so on till the end of the book.
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I have been using Shotomatic for that. And Deskeen seems to have introduced that function recently and is more affordable.
Ok, I bought Deskeen and it did what I needed. But as soon as I launched it, Little Snitch told me it tried to connect to FaceBook, Slack, a bunch of different Notion domains, and some site called cr-relay.com. I blocked all that, and the app still works. But, WTF!? Why does it need to connect to all these sites as soon as I open it?
Shotomatic is a subscription, so it's an automatic no. I'll check out Deskeen. Thanks for the tip.
That seems doable pretty easily. Is the ebook just an EPUB file? If so, you probably don’t need screenshot automation. You can search for online tools like “EPUB to JPG” and use one of those, for example: https://convertio.co/epub-jpg/ Is that what you meant, or is it inside something like Kindle or another app where you can’t access the EPUB/PDF file directly?
Yeah, the book has DRM on it. I bought the book. So, I need to use it in the app and grab screenshots.
What kind of DRM? Adobe (e.g. Kobo) DRM can be removed using Calibre and the DeDRM plugin. Older Amazon formats too.
Wouldn't be easier to just get a script written by GPT for this? Seems like a one-time job
I guess. If you can get a script to turn page, grab a screenshot and turn another page.
Keyboard Maestro would make this easy. I have it do rolling screen shots every ten seconds, delete anything older than 10 mins. I'm not a programmer, but Claude AI walked me thru it in 20 minutes.
i was just gonna say to ask claude.
You can totally send this requirement to an AI and have it write the relevant script: based on cliclick to simulate clicks, and then just use the system's screenshot tool to take screenshots.
I recommend Xnip Pro (the free features are enough). If you press 'R' after saving a screenshot, the app will re-select the exact same area.
BetterTouchTool + CleanshotX can do this too.
Not exactly an app recommendation, but you can do this with built-in macOS automation, without installing anything. I am checking with a mod before posting any scripts, but you can generate exactly what you want by asking an LLM: "Write a macOS Bash script that captures a fixed rectangular section of the screen repeatedly, saves each screenshot as a numbered PNG to ~/Desktop/pages, waits 5 seconds before starting so I can focus the target app, then after each screenshot sends a page-turn keyboard action to the frontmost app using AppleScript/System Events. Include configurable variables for page count, rectangle x,y,width,height, turn key code, initial delay, and wait-after-turn delay."
tell any LLM agent (gemini, claude-code, codex or any OpenSource agent) to use OSA and explain what you need - they will do it for you
agree with apple script direction as well. I asked claude to take a stab at the problem: -- Ebook screenshot automation -- Captures a fixed region, turns the page, repeats. -- ===== EDIT THESE ===== set pageCount to 50 -- number of pages to capture set turnKey to 124 -- key code: 124 = right arrow, 123 = left, 121 = page down set delaySeconds to 1.2 -- pause after turning page (let it render) set saveFolder to (POSIX path of (path to desktop)) & "ebook_shots/" -- Capture region: x y width height (in screen points). Leave "" for full screen. set captureRegion to "400 100 800 1000" -- ====================== do shell script "mkdir -p " & quoted form of saveFolder -- Give yourself 4 seconds to click into the ebook app delay 4 repeat with i from 1 to pageCount set fileName to saveFolder & "page_" & text -3 thru -1 of ("000" & i) & ".png" if captureRegion is "" then do shell script "screencapture -x " & quoted form of fileName else do shell script "screencapture -x -R" & captureRegion & " " & quoted form of fileName end if -- turn the page tell application "System Events" to key code turnKey delay delaySeconds end repeat display notification "Captured " & pageCount & " pages" with title "Ebook Screenshots" How it works: it uses macOS's built-in screencapture for the region and System Events to press the page-turn key, looping until done. To use it: open Script Editor, paste it in, set the four variables, then hit Run and click into your ebook app within 4 seconds. Key things to set: captureRegion — the "x y width height" of your reading pane. Run screencapture -R or just use ⌘⇧4 and note the coordinates it shows. turnKey — right arrow (124) works for most readers; some use page down (121). delaySeconds — bump up if pages render slowly.
This sounds very scriptable from the command line, ask Claude or ChatGPT to spin something up for you
It's very simple: just send the text below to any AI and have it write a one-time script for you. Write an AppleScript for me. It should work within the XXX app. Press the up arrow key once, then take a screenshot. Press it again, then take another screenshot. At the very top of the script, include options to configure the delay and the number of pages.