Img2TypTeX

Snip a math equation anywhere on screen, OCR it with Claude's vision model, and get ready-to-paste Typst math markup on your clipboard. Same workflow as Mathpix's snipping tool, targeting Typst instead of LaTeX.

Web version

Try it online: img2typtex.vercel.app — no install required.

The web version covers the same OCR-to-Typst workflow as the desktop app — screen capture (browser permitting) or image upload/drag-drop/paste — using your own Anthropic API key, entered once in the in-page Settings panel. The key is stored only in your browser's localStorage and sent only to the app's own /api/ocr endpoint; it's never saved server-side. See web_app/ for the source and web_app/README.md for local dev and deployment notes.

Choose an input	OCR result — Typst + LaTeX

How it works

1. Press Alt+Shift+M (or click the tray icon) to open a full-screen snip overlay, or choose Open Image File… from the tray menu to OCR an equation from an existing image file (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP) instead of the live screen.
2. If snipping, drag a rectangle around an equation anywhere on screen — any app, any window.
3. The image (captured region or uploaded file) is sent to Claude's vision API and OCR'd to LaTeX.
4. The LaTeX is converted to Typst markup locally and shown in a result window with Copy Typst and Copy LaTeX buttons.

Press Esc or click without dragging to cancel a snip.

Screenshots

Choose an input	OCR result — Typst + LaTeX

Project structure

Img2TypTeX/
├── src/                      # Frontend (plain HTML/CSS/JS, no bundler)
│   ├── overlay.html          # Full-screen drag-to-select snip surface
│   ├── result.html           # Shows the OCR'd Typst + LaTeX, with copy buttons
│   ├── settings.html         # API key / model configuration
│   ├── style.css             # Shared dark theme for result + settings
│   └── lib/
│       ├── converter.js      # LaTeX -> Typst transpiler
│       └── converter.test.js
├── src-tauri/                # Rust backend (Tauri v2)
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── lib.rs            # Tray icon, shortcut, windows, Tauri commands
│   │   ├── capture.rs        # Screen-region capture (xcap) -> PNG
│   │   ├── ocr.rs            # Calls the Anthropic Messages API (vision)
│   │   ├── config.rs         # Local JSON config (API key, model)
│   │   └── main.rs
│   ├── capabilities/default.json
│   └── tauri.conf.json
├── web_app/                   # Web port - live at img2typtex.vercel.app
│   ├── index.html / style.css / app.js
│   ├── api/ocr.js             # Vercel serverless OCR proxy (BYOK, no server-side key)
│   └── lib/converter.js       # Same LaTeX -> Typst transpiler, copied verbatim
└── package.json

The frontend intentionally has no build step: it loads window.__TAURI__.* globals directly (withGlobalTauri: true in tauri.conf.json), so there's nothing to bundle and no JS dependencies to install.

Prerequisites

• Rust (stable toolchain)
• Node.js 18+ (only used to run the Tauri CLI)
• Platform build tools required by Tauri — see the Tauri prerequisites guide for your OS (Xcode command line tools on macOS, WebView2 on Windows, webkit2gtk/libsoup etc. on Linux)
• An Anthropic API key with access to a vision-capable Claude model

Setup

npm install
npm run dev

This launches the app in development mode. On first run, open Settings from the tray menu and paste in your Anthropic API key (and optionally change the model — defaults to claude-sonnet-4-6). The key is stored in a local JSON file in the OS-standard app config directory and is never sent anywhere except directly to Anthropic's API.

Building

npm run build

Produces a native installer/bundle for your current platform (.dmg/.app on macOS, .msi/.exe on Windows, .deb/.AppImage/.rpm on Linux) in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

Configuration

Setting	Where	Notes
Anthropic API key	Settings window	Required before snipping will work
Model	Settings window	Any vision-capable Claude model id, e.g. claude-opus-4-8, claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
Global shortcut	src-tauri/src/lib.rs (SNIP_SHORTCUT)	Currently hard-coded to Alt+Shift+M; change and rebuild to customize

Notes & known limitations

• The LaTeX → Typst converter (src/lib/converter.js) is a best-effort syntactic transpiler covering the symbols and structures (fractions, roots, sub/superscripts, Greek letters, matrices, cases, decorations, etc.) that show up in the overwhelming majority of OCR'd equations — it is not a full LaTeX parser, so unusual or malformed input may not convert perfectly. Run npm run test:converter to exercise its test suite.
• On Linux, the tray icon may not appear unless a tray menu is attached (this app always attaches one, so it should show up), and tray click events are not emitted on some Linux desktop environments — the right-click context menu (Snip / Settings / Quit) always works as a fallback.
• Screen capture, global shortcuts, and the tray icon all require OS-level permissions on some platforms (e.g. Screen Recording permission on macOS) — grant these when prompted, or the snip will fail silently.