Mcat

Installation • Examples • CHANGELOG

✨ Features

• 📄 File to Markdown/HTML
  Convert structured content like CSVs, directories, and rich document formats (e.g., DOCX) into clean Markdown/HTML.

• 🏞️ Markdown/HTML to Image
  Render Markdown or HTML files into images.

• 🖼️ Inline Image/Videos
  Display images/videos inside your terminal using protocols like Kitty, iTerm, or Sixel.

• 🌐 URL to Inline Image/Video
  View Images/Videos from a URL in your terminal

• 🔗 Concatenate Images and Video too!
  Concatenate videos of the same format (time concat) and Concatenate images by stacking them horizontal or vertical(default)

• 💃🏻 Automatic Styling for HTML
  automatically inject styles into the HTML to make the image cooler!

⬇️ Installation

cargo install mcat

or ~

git clone https://github.com/Skardyy/mcat

cd mcat

cargo install --path .

or prebuilt from the latest release

🏋️ Example Usage

# View a document as Markdown

mcat resume.pdf


# View a document as pretty text in the terminal

mcat resume.pdf -p


# Or HTML

mcat project.docx -o html


# Show a document inline as an image

mcat readme.md -i


# Show a document as an image inline with a dark theme

mcat presentation.pptx -im


# Show a document as an image in the terminal with your own css

mcat document.pdf -it "path/to/your/file.css"


# Render a document to an image and save it

mcat readme.md -o image > img.png


# Show media inline in your terminal

mcat diagram.png

mcat video.mp4


# From a url

mcat "https://giphy.com/gifs/..."


# Images too!

mcat "https://website/images/..."


# Concatenate documents and turn them into an image

mcat document.docx presentation.odt table.xlsx archive.zip -o image > all.png


# Or just select interactively and copy to clipboard (for ai prompts)

# Replace scb with a command from your os

mcat directory | scb


# Concatenate images (stacks vertical)

mcat someimage.png anotherimage.bmp


# Or save it (stacks horizontal)

mcat someimage.png anotherimage.bmp --hori -o image > save.png


# Concatenate videos (must be same format: codec,audio..)

mcat part1.mp4 anothervideo.mp4 -o video > save.mp4

⚙️ Supported Formats

🛐 Dependencies

Mcat tries to have as little dependencies as possible.

chromium (for rendering HTML to image):

1. exists on every windows machine through msedge. and other machines that have chrome/msedge/chromium
2. can be installed by doing mcat --fetch-chormium

ffmpeg (for videos)

1. can be installed by doing mcat --fetch-ffmpeg

🆘 Help

mcat --help
Usage: mcat [OPTIONS] [input]...

Arguments:
  [input]...  file / dir

Options:
  -o <output>                            the format to output [possible values: html, md, image, video, inline]
  -t <theme>                             alternative css file for images, valid options: [default, makurai, <local file>] [default: default]
  -s                                     add style to html too (when html is the output)
      --kitty                            makes the inline image encoded to kitty
      --iterm                            makes the inline image encoded to iterm
      --sixel                            makes the inline image encoded to sixel
  -i                                     shortcut for putting --output inline
  -m                                     shortcut for putting --theme makurai
      --hori                             concat images horizontal instead of vertical
      --inline-options <inline-options>  options for the --output inline
                                         *  center=<bool>
                                         *  width=<string> [only for images]
                                         *  height=<string> [only for images]
                                         *  scale=<f32>
                                         *  spx=<string>
                                         *  sc=<string>
                                         *  zoom=<usize> [only for images]
                                         *  x=<int> [only for images]
                                         *  y=<int> [only for images]
                                         *  exmp: --inline-options 'center=false,width=80%,height=20c,scale=0.5,spx=1920x1080,sc=100x20,zoom=2,x=16,y=8'
      --fetch-chromium                   download and prepare chromium
      --fetch-ffmpeg                     download and prepare ffmpeg
      --fetch-clean                      Clean up the local binaries
  -h, --help                             Print help
  -V, --version                          Print version

🚧 Roadmap

• mcat.nvim: a neovim plugin to use mcat inside neovim

📎 License

MIT License