Cropsmith

A cross-platform Swiss Army knife for document and media manipulation. Capture web page regions as PDF, compress PDFs and videos, combine PDFs, convert PDF to DOCX, and run OCR -- all from a single CLI command available system-wide.

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Features

• Web Capture -- screenshot a web page within a user-defined bounding box and export as PDF
• Page Capture -- interactively draw a box over any reader, auto-turn pages, and OCR them into a searchable PDF
• PDF Compression -- reduce PDF file size while preserving quality
• PDF Combine -- merge multiple PDFs into a single file
• PDF to Word -- convert PDF files to editable Word (.docx) documents
• Video Compression -- compress video files using configurable quality settings
• Text Extraction (OCR) -- extract text from images or scanned PDFs
• Right-click integration -- run the file tools straight from the file manager's right-click menu (macOS + Windows)

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Commands at a glance

Cropsmith uses plain-language command names. Older/alternative names still work as aliases.

Command	Aliases	What it does
web-to-pdf	capture	Save a web page region as a PDF
capture-pages	scan, page-turner	Capture a screen region across pages into a (searchable) PDF
shrink-pdf	compress-pdf	Compress a PDF
merge-pdf	combine, merge	Combine PDFs into one
pdf-to-word	pdf2docx, pdf-to-docx	Convert a PDF to Word (.docx)
shrink-video	compress-video	Compress a video
extract-text	ocr	Pull text out of an image or scanned PDF

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Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• pip (comes with Python)
• Platform: macOS, Linux, or Windows (WSL recommended on Windows for full feature parity)

System dependencies

None. Cropsmith is self-contained -- OCR, PDF compression and video compression all run from bundled Python wheels (RapidOCR, PyMuPDF, and an ffmpeg binary shipped inside imageio-ffmpeg). No ffmpeg, tesseract or ghostscript install required.

The only exception is web-to-pdf, which downloads a Chromium browser once via playwright install chromium the first time you use it.

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Installation

Download the app (no setup)

The easiest way -- no Python, no terminal, nothing to install. Grab the build for your OS from the latest release:

OS	Download
macOS	Cropsmith-macos.zip -- unzip and run
Windows	Cropsmith-windows.zip -- unzip and run
Linux	Cropsmith-linux.zip -- unzip and run

These bundles include everything (Python runtime + all engines). Nothing else to install. Polished installers (.dmg / .exe / .AppImage) and right-click menu integration are on the roadmap.

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For developers (pipx / pip)

pipx install cropsmith          # once published to PyPI; works on macOS/Linux/Windows

See packaging/ for details.

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From source

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/youruser/cropsmith.git
cd cropsmith

2. Create and activate a virtual environment

python3 -m venv .venv

# macOS / Linux
source .venv/bin/activate

# Windows (PowerShell)
.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

3. Install the package in editable mode

This is the key step that makes cropsmith callable from anywhere without activating the venv manually:

pip install -e .

4. Install Playwright browser

playwright install chromium

5. Verify

cropsmith --help

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Usage

Web capture to PDF

Capture a bounding box region of a web page and save as PDF.

cropsmith web-to-pdf --url "https://example.com" --box 100,200,800,600 --output capture.pdf

--box format is x1,y1,x2,y2 in pixels relative to the rendered page.

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Capture pages from your screen (interactive)

Draw a box over any on-screen reader (browser, Kindle, PDF viewer), then Cropsmith captures each page -- auto-pressing a key to turn pages -- and OCRs them into one searchable PDF.

cropsmith capture-pages --output book.pdf

It will let you drag a selection box, then prompt for which key turns the page, how many pages, and the interval. Or pass everything up front:

cropsmith capture-pages -o book.pdf --box 200,150,900,1200 --key right --pages 40 --interval 1.2

The selection overlay is dismissed before capture begins, so it never appears in the output. On macOS, grant your terminal Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions (System Settings > Privacy & Security) the first time.

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Shrink (compress) a PDF

cropsmith shrink-pdf input.pdf --output compressed.pdf --level screen

Levels: screen (smallest), ebook, printer, prepress (highest quality)

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Merge PDFs

cropsmith merge-pdf file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf --output combined.pdf

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PDF to Word

cropsmith pdf-to-word input.pdf --output output.docx

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Shrink (compress) a video

cropsmith shrink-video input.mp4 --output compressed.mp4 --crf 28

CRF range: 18 (high quality) to 51 (smallest file). Default: 28.

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Extract text (OCR)

Extract text from an image or scanned PDF:

cropsmith extract-text input.png --output extracted.txt
cropsmith extract-text scanned.pdf --output extracted.txt

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Right-click menu (macOS & Windows)

Add Cropsmith's file tools to your file manager's right-click menu:

cropsmith install-menu      # cropsmith uninstall-menu to remove

Then right-click a file:

File	Actions
PDF	Shrink PDF, PDF → Word, Extract Text
Image	Extract Text
Video	Compress Video
Folder	Merge PDFs (every PDF in the folder → merged.pdf)

Output is written next to the source (foo-min.pdf, foo.docx, foo.txt, foo-compressed.mp4). Actions are scoped by file type, so PDF tools only show on PDFs.

• macOS -- Finder > Quick Actions. Shows a notification when done. (Merge: select multiple PDFs.)
• Windows -- right-click a file directly (Windows 10) or under "Show more options" (Windows 11). Per-user, no admin. (Merge: right-click a folder, or inside it, to merge every PDF in that folder.)
• Linux -- on the roadmap (varies by desktop environment).

The interactive tools (web-to-pdf, capture-pages) stay CLI-only.

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How the global command works

Cropsmith uses a pyproject.toml entry point to register the CLI command at install time:

[project.scripts]
cropsmith = "cropsmith.cli:main"

When you run pip install -e . inside your virtual environment, pip writes a cropsmith executable into the venv's bin/ (or Scripts/ on Windows) directory. If that venv is active or its bin path is on your PATH, you can call cropsmith from any directory.

For a permanent global install without activating the venv each time, use pipx:

pipx install .

pipx manages an isolated environment automatically and puts the command on your system PATH permanently.

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Project structure

cropsmith/
    cropsmith/
        __init__.py
        cli.py              # Entry point, command parsing, friendly aliases
        capture.py          # Web capture via Playwright
        pdf_tools.py        # Compress, combine, convert PDF
        video_tools.py      # Video compression via ffmpeg
        ocr.py              # OCR via Tesseract (+ PyMuPDF for PDFs)
    pyproject.toml
    README.md

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pyproject.toml (starter)

[build-system]
requires = ["setuptools>=68", "wheel"]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"

[project]
name = "cropsmith"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Swiss Army knife for document and media manipulation"
requires-python = ">=3.11"
dependencies = [
    "playwright",
    "pypdf",
    "pdf2docx",
    "rapidocr-onnxruntime",
    "imageio-ffmpeg",
    "Pillow",
    "PyMuPDF",
    "click",
    "mss",
    "pynput",
]

[project.scripts]
cropsmith = "cropsmith.cli:main"

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Recommended global install workflow (any platform)

# Install pipx if you don't have it
pip install pipx
pipx ensurepath

# Install cropsmith globally
cd /path/to/cropsmith
pipx install .

# Now callable from anywhere, no venv activation needed
cropsmith --help

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Platform notes

Platform	Status	Notes
macOS	Full support	No system deps -- everything is bundled
Linux	Full support	No system deps -- everything is bundled
Windows	Full support	No system deps -- everything is bundled

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License

MIT