Snip Anywhere

Snip any part of any tab (a web page in the web viewer, a PDF page, the graph, a canvas, another note) and drop it into your note as an image. The image is stored inside the note itself, so no attachment file is created.

It works like the "copy embed link to rectangular selection" button in PDF++, but for every tab, not only PDFs.

How to use

1. Click in the note you're writing, so Snip Anywhere knows where snips go.
2. In the tab you want to snip from, click the Snip a region button (a dashed square) at the top right of the tab.
3. Drag a rectangle. Press Esc or right-click to cancel.

The snip goes into your note at the cursor, on its own lines, and is also copied so you can paste it somewhere else. The note's cursor moves past it, so several snips land in order. If that note is in reading view, the snip goes at the end.

The same action is in the command palette as Snip a region of the current tab, so you can give it a hotkey.

Which note it goes into

The note you most recently worked in that's still open, other than the tab you're snipping. Snip a web page in one pane and it lands in the note you were writing in the other. If no note is open, the snip is only copied: open a note and paste it.

What a snip looks like in the note

![snip|420](data:image/webp;base64,UklGRl…)
Source: [[Concepts-Biology.pdf#page=71]]

• The image is shown at the width it had on screen (|420), and stored at full screen resolution, so it stays sharp on high-resolution displays.
• The source line links back to where it came from: the web page ([Page title](https://…)), the PDF page ([[book.pdf#page=71]]), or the note or file. Snips from views without a file, such as the graph, have no source line.
• In the editor Live Preview shows the image itself. In Source mode the long image text is folded into a small snip · 84 KB chip; click the chip to see or select the text, and it folds again when the cursor leaves it.

Because the image lives in the note, the note shows it anywhere, with or without this plugin, and it syncs and moves with the note.

Settings

Good to know

• Desktop only. Snips are taken with Electron's screen capture, which isn't available on mobile. Notes with snips still show them on mobile.
• Note size. Each snip adds its image to the note: typically 20–150 KB for WebP. Very large snips make notes slower to open and search, so prefer snipping just the part you need.
• What you see is what you get. The snip is the screen as shown, so scroll and zoom the tab first.

Installation

From Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Browse, search for Snip Anywhere, install, and enable it.

Manually: download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/snip-anywhere/, then enable Snip Anywhere under Settings → Community plugins.

Development

npm install
npm run dev        # rebuild main.js on every change
npm test           # unit tests
npm run build      # type-check and build for release
npm run install-plugin -- "path/to/vault"

npm run dev-test -- "path/to/dev-vault" runs the in-Obsidian checks: it installs the plugin and a test harness (dev/harness) into a vault that already allows community plugins, opens it, drives real snips through the tab buttons (web viewer, PDF, notes, graph, popout window, 125% zoom), checks the captured pixels and the note text, and prints the results. Test notes go in a Snip test folder. Use a throwaway vault.

To release, run npm version patch (or minor / major) and push the tag (git push --follow-tags). The release workflow builds the plugin and drafts a GitHub release with the three files; review it and publish.

License

MIT