Python script that saves an image from clipboard to a file.

Image Clipboard Filer.md

Introduction

Saves an image from clipboard to a file.

Dependencies:

• python2
• PyGTK

Installation

Download image-clipboard-to-file.py and run it with python image-clipboard-to-file.py.

Note: Some distributions such as Arch Linux renamed Python 2 to python2 instead of python.

Arch Linux users can install the image-clipboard-to-file package from the AUR.

Credits

Thanks to Paweł Pałucha who posted this script on this stackoverflow discussion. I share it here to allow package maintainers to easily package it for their distribution.

image-clipboard-filer.py

#!/usr/bin/python
"""
Save image from clipboard to file
"""

import sys
import glob
from optparse import OptionParser

def def_file():
    """
    Return default file name
    """
    files = glob.glob("img???.png")
    if len(files) < 1:
        return 'img001.png'
    maxf = 0
    for f in files:
        try:
            n = int(f[3:6])
            maxf = max(n, maxf)
        except ValueError:
            pass
    return 'img{:03d}.png'.format(maxf+1)


usage = """%prog [option] [filename]
Save image from clipboard to file in PNG format."""

op = OptionParser(usage=usage)
op.add_option("-o", "--open", action="store_true", dest="open", default=False, 
        help="Open saved file with default program (using xdg-open)")
(options, args) = op.parse_args()

if len(args) > 1:
    parser.error("Only one argument expected")
    sys.exit(1)
elif len(args) == 1:
    fname = args[0]
else:
    fname = def_file()

import gtk
clipboard = gtk.clipboard_get()
image = clipboard.wait_for_image()
if image is not None:
    image.save(fname, "png")
    print "PNG image saved to file", fname
    if options.open:
        import subprocess
        subprocess.call(["xdg-open", fname])
else:
    print "No image in clipboard found"
    sys.exit( 1 )

I added a single line to the end of the script to make it even more useful:

else:
    print "No image in clipboard found"
    sys.exit( 1 )

By adding the sys.exit it is now possible to issue an alternative command when there is no image in the clipboard buffer. I used this to create a "Launcher" button on my desktop:

~/bin/image-clipboard-to-file.py -o || gimp

When an image is in the clipboard buffer and I click the button, gimp will open with the image. Otherwise gimp will open as normal with an empty document.

@jippiegithub

Thanks for your contribution! I just saw your comment and added your line to the script above.

Regards,

Robert

Does this script work in Google Colab? I'm getting errors I don't know how to resolve.