snipshot

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Generate beautiful screenshots of code snippets from the command line.
PNG, SVG, or ANSI terminal output — syntax highlighting, line numbers, and colored annotations, no browser required.

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Features

• Syntax highlighting for 200+ languages via Shiki (VS Code-quality tokenization)
• Line numbers with proper gutter alignment
• Red/green highlights — full lines or precise column ranges
• Multiple ranges — --lines 10-14,42-56 captures several sections, folding the gaps automatically
• Fold/collapse line ranges to hide boilerplate with --fold
• Context lines — 3 lines around your selection by default (--context / --no-context)
• Page-fit guard — errors past 70 rendered rows so snippets fit on a page (--max-lines / --no-max-lines)
• Page-width word wrap — long lines wrap to fit a document by default (--max-width / --no-max-width)
• Automatic language detection from 150+ file extensions, with graceful plaintext fallback for unknown types
• Dark & light themes — One Dark Pro (default) or One Light via --theme
• SVG output — same layout as a crisp, scalable vector file via --svg
• Terminal output — print the snippet as ANSI-colored text (24-bit color) via --ansi
• IntelliJ plugin — right-click a selection in any JetBrains IDE (PLUGIN.md)
• VS Code extension — the same, in VS Code (VSCODE.md)
• Offline — everything runs locally, no network needed
• Standalone binaries for Linux, Windows, and macOS (via Bun compile), built and attached to Releases automatically

Install

# npm (requires Node.js >= 18)
npm install -g snipshot

# or run directly
npx snipshot <file> --lines <ranges>

Usage

snipshot <file> --lines <ranges> [options]

Options

Option	Description
--lines <ranges>	Line range(s) to capture, e.g. 42-56 or 10-14,42-56 (gaps between ranges are folded) (required)
--highlight-red <specs>	Red highlights — comma-separated and/or repeatable
--highlight-green <specs>	Green highlights — comma-separated and/or repeatable
--fold <ranges>	Collapse line ranges into a single indicator row — comma-separated and/or repeatable
--context <n>	Lines of context before/after --lines, clamped to the file (default: 3)
--no-context	Show exactly the requested lines
--max-lines <n>	Error if the result exceeds this many rows so it fits a page (default: 70)
--no-max-lines	Disable the rows limit
--theme <name>	Color theme: dark (default) or light
--max-width <pixels>	Max image width with word wrap (default: 800 ≈ a page width)
--no-max-width	Disable word wrap (image grows to the longest line)
--svg	Write an SVG document instead of a PNG (default name: <name>_L<start>-<end>.svg)
--ansi	Print the snippet to stdout as ANSI-colored text (24-bit color) instead of writing a file; with --output, saves the colored text there
--output <path>	Output file path (default: <name>_L<start>-<end>.png or .svg)
--root <path>	Project root for the header path (default: nearest .git above the file, else the current directory)

Running snipshot with no arguments prints this help.

Highlight / fold format

Each --highlight-* and --fold flag takes one or more comma-separated targets (and can be repeated):

47           # entire line 47
47-50        # lines 47 through 50
47:12-38     # line 47, columns 12 to 38 (highlights only — draws a box)
13,15-18     # several at once in a single flag

All numbers are 1-based and inclusive.

Examples

# Basic screenshot (3 context lines added automatically)
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56

# Multiple highlights in one flag
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --highlight-red 47,50-52 --highlight-green 55:12-38

# Several line ranges at once — the gaps between them are folded automatically
snipshot src/App.java --lines 10-14,42-56,80-95

# Wider lines (override the default page-width wrap), or disable wrapping
snipshot src/App.java --lines 1-20 --max-width 1100
snipshot src/App.java --lines 1-20 --no-max-width

# Fold boilerplate to focus on what matters
snipshot src/App.java --lines 1-80 --fold 5-30,60-70

# Exactly the requested lines, no context
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --no-context

# Large extract that exceeds the 70-row page-fit limit
snipshot src/App.java --lines 1-200 --no-max-lines

# Light theme
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --theme light

# Custom output path
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --output screenshot.png

# SVG instead of PNG (scalable, small file)
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --svg

# ANSI-colored output straight to the terminal
snipshot src/App.java --lines 42-56 --highlight-red 47 --ansi

Examples

TypeScript with interface highlight and column annotation:

Long lines wrapped to a fixed width, with mixed highlights:

Clean output without highlights:

SVG output (--svg)

Same layout as the PNG, but scalable and a fraction of the size — these two are real .svg files rendered by your browser. They render the same in Word, PowerPoint and IntelliJ: the SVG sticks to the subset those engines honour (hex colors with fill-opacity rather than rgba(), explicit baselines and positions).

Several ranges at once (--lines 3-5,39-42,84-91) — the gaps are folded automatically:

Light theme with red/green annotations:

Terminal output (--ansi)

Printed straight to stdout in 24-bit color — same header, gutter, folds and highlights, no file written:

Light theme (--theme light)

Syntax highlighting:

Red/green annotations:

Folded region:

Standalone binaries

Pre-built binaries include the Bun runtime — no Node.js installation needed on the target machine.

Download

Grab the archive for your platform from Releases (.tar.gz for Linux/macOS, .zip for Windows), extract it, and run:

tar xzf snipshot-linux-x64.tar.gz
./snipshot src/App.java --lines 10-30

Releases are built automatically by GitHub Actions: pushing a v* tag runs the tests, cross-compiles all four platform binaries, and attaches the archives to a GitHub Release.

Build from source

Requires Bun:

# All platforms (linux, win, mac-intel, mac-arm)
npm run build:standalone

# Specific platform
npm run build:standalone:linux
npm run build:standalone:win
npm run build:standalone:mac-intel
npm run build:standalone:mac-arm
npm run build:standalone:mac      # both macOS arches

# Or call the script directly (also supports comma-separated platforms)
node scripts/build-standalone.mjs linux,win

Each platform builds to its own folder — standalone/<os>/snipshot (or snipshot.exe on Windows):

standalone/
├── linux/snipshot
├── win/snipshot.exe
├── mac-intel/snipshot
└── mac-arm/snipshot

Every binary is a single self-contained file.

Install system-wide (Linux/macOS):

sudo cp standalone/linux/snipshot /opt/snipshot
sudo ln -s /opt/snipshot /usr/local/bin/snipshot

IntelliJ plugin

Right-click a selection in the editor and get the same image the CLI produces — on the clipboard by default, or as a PNG or SVG file. Full documentation → PLUGIN.md

• Snipshot this (red) / (green) shoots the visible window with your selection outlined in it — the annotation keeps its context instead of being cropped to it.
• Mark Selection Red / Green / Folded tints regions in the editor, then one shot carries them all.
• Multi-caret selections become several ranges in one image, gaps folded.
• Destination is configurable: clipboard, a save dialog that remembers the last folder, .snipshot/ in the project, the project root, or a fixed directory.

Install snipshot-intellij-plugin.zip from Releases through Settings | Plugins | ⚙ | Install Plugin from Disk… — it works on IntelliJ 2024.1 and newer, in any JetBrains IDE. Its settings page can download the CLI binary for you. To build it from source:

npm run build:plugin    # -> standalone/intellij/snipshot-intellij-plugin.zip

Building it needs a JDK 17 or newer; Gradle and the compile toolchain come from the committed wrapper. Development notes live in extra/intelij/snipshot-plugin.

VS Code extension

The same thing for VS Code: the same Snipshot submenu on right-click, the same actions, marks, destinations and settings, wrapping the same CLI. Full documentation → VSCODE.md

Install snipshot-vscode-extension.vsix from Releases through Extensions | … | Install from VSIX… (or code --install-extension <file>); it works on VS Code 1.85 and newer. Snipshot: Download Binary fetches the CLI for you. To build it from source:

npm run build:vscode    # -> standalone/vscode/snipshot-vscode-extension.vsix

Building it needs Node 22 or newer and nothing else. Development notes live in extra/vscode/snipshot-vscode.

How it works

1. Reads the full source file (not just the requested lines) to ensure accurate syntax highlighting
2. Tokenizes with Shiki using the One Dark Pro theme (or One Light with --theme light)
3. Renders to a canvas with @napi-rs/canvas (Skia-based, no browser needed)
4. Exports as PNG — or, from the same layout engine, as an SVG document (--svg) or ANSI-colored terminal text (--ansi)

The font used is JetBrains Mono (bundled).

Development

git clone https://github.com/9pings/snipshot.git
cd snipshot
npm install

npm run build        # compile TypeScript
npm test             # run tests (64 tests)
npm run test:watch   # watch mode
npm run build:plugin # build the IntelliJ plugin zip
npm run build:vscode # build the VS Code extension (.vsix)

Releasing

CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) builds and tests every push and PR on master. Publishing a release is one tag away:

git tag v1.1.0 && git push origin v1.1.0

The release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) then runs the tests, cross-compiles the standalone binaries for all four platforms, builds the IntelliJ plugin zip and the VS Code .vsix, and attaches them all to a GitHub Release (.tar.gz for Linux/macOS with the executable bit preserved, .zip for Windows). Publishing the extension to the Visual Studio Marketplace or Open VSX is opt-in: it happens only when a VSCE_PAT or OVSX_PAT repository secret exists.

License

MIT