keynote-clipboard

It is useful when you want to:

• inspect what Keynote copied to the clipboard
• turn copied diagrams into structured JSON
• render clipboard content as SVG
• convert simple Keynote graphics into TikZ/LaTeX

The package includes both a library API and a CLI, as well as a macOS demo app.

What It Does

Input:

• JSON payloads exported from the Keynote clipboard format
• a single object, an array of objects, or the numeric-key object table Keynote commonly produces

Output:

• normalized shapes, connection lines, images, and unknown objects
• decoded text styling metadata, including archived Foundation values when available
• diagnostics for unsupported or partially parsed fields
• optional SVG or TikZ rendering from the normalized document

Supported Today

Parsed object types:

• com.apple.apps.content-language.shape
• com.apple.apps.content-language.connection-line
• com.apple.apps.content-language.image

Parsing support includes:

• geometry, fills, strokes, gradients, shadows, paths, and layout properties
• text extraction plus decoding of archived values such as NSFont, NSColor, and NSParagraphStyle
• lenient parsing that preserves unknown objects instead of failing hard
• connection-line anchor resolution back to shape identifiers

Rendering support:

• SVG for shapes, connection lines, basic text, gradients, shadows, markers, and image placeholders
• TikZ for shapes, connection lines, basic text, gradients, shadows, markers, and image placeholders
• standalone LaTeX output for TikZ when needed

Limitations

This project currently aims for stable, useful output rather than pixel-perfect Keynote fidelity.

Current gaps include:

• rich text layout is simplified
• images are rendered as placeholders, not embedded assets
• unsupported objects are kept in the parsed document but may not render
• some complex Keynote-specific effects may fall back to simpler shapes

Install

npm install keynote-clipboard

Requirements:

• Node.js 18+

Quick Start

Library

import {
  parseKeynoteClipboardFile,
  toSvg,
  toTikz
} from "keynote-clipboard";

const parsed = await parseKeynoteClipboardFile("./complex-keynote-clipboard.json");

console.log(parsed.stats);
console.log(parsed.document.shapes.length);
console.log(parsed.diagnostics);

const svg = toSvg(parsed.document);
console.log(svg.svg);

const tikz = toTikz(parsed.document, { standalone: true });
console.log(tikz.tikz);

If you already have the clipboard payload as a JSON string:

import {
  parseKeynoteClipboard,
  toSvgFromClipboard,
  toTikzFromClipboard
} from "keynote-clipboard";

const parsed = parseKeynoteClipboard(rawClipboardJsonString);
const svg = toSvgFromClipboard(rawClipboardJsonString);
const tikz = toTikzFromClipboard(rawClipboardJsonString, {}, { standalone: true });

CLI

Inspect a payload:

npx keynote-clipboard inspect complex-keynote-clipboard.json --pretty --diagnostics

Render SVG:

npx keynote-clipboard svg complex-keynote-clipboard.json --out slide.svg

Render TikZ:

npx keynote-clipboard tikz complex-keynote-clipboard.json --out slide.tikz

Emit a standalone LaTeX document:

npx keynote-clipboard tikz complex-keynote-clipboard.json --standalone --out slide.tex

Available commands:

• inspect <file>: print the parsed document and stats as JSON
• svg <file>: write SVG to stdout or --out
• tikz <file>: write TikZ to stdout or --out

Available flags:

• --pretty: pretty-print JSON output
• --diagnostics: include diagnostics
• --standalone: emit a standalone LaTeX document for tikz
• --out <path>: write SVG or TikZ to a file

Note:

• for svg and tikz, rendered content goes to stdout or --out
• when --diagnostics is used with svg or tikz, diagnostics are written to stderr as JSON

API

Main exports:

• parseKeynoteClipboard(input, options?)
• parseKeynoteClipboardFile(filePath, options?)
• normalizeTopLevelEntries(input, addDiagnostic?)
• decodeArchivedValue(base64)
• isLikelyBplistBase64(value)
• sanitizeForJson(value)
• toSvg(document, options?)
• toSvgFromClipboard(input, parseOptions?, svgOptions?)
• toTikz(document, options?)
• toTikzFromClipboard(input, parseOptions?, tikzOptions?)

Common parse options:

• mode: "lenient"
• decodeArchives: true
• collectDiagnostics: true

The parse result contains:

• document: normalized KeynoteClipboardDocument
• diagnostics: warnings and parse issues
• stats: counts for parsed objects and diagnostics

Development

npm run typecheck
npm run test
npm run build

Demo App

A local Tauri demo app lives in demo-app/ and previews clipboard payloads using the local source build.

cd demo-app
npm install
npm run tauri dev