Copy markdown as HTML to the macOS clipboard - for pasting into Slack etc

mdcopy

#!/bin/bash

# Copy GitHub-Flavored Markdown as HTML into the Mac clipboard, allowing
# applications like Slack to paste the HTML.
#
# Requires pandoc for the markdown->HTML conversion (`brew install pandoc`)
#
# Copyright (c) 2026 Ori Peleg. Licensed under the MIT License.

# Usage: paste or pipe markdown into stdin

if ! command -v pandoc &> /dev/null; then
  echo 'Error: pandoc is required but not found in PATH (try `brew install pandoc`). Aborting.' >&2
  exit 1
fi

# read from stdin
markdown=$(cat)

# convert GFM -> HTML
html=$(echo "$markdown" | pandoc --from gfm --to html)

# Use macOS's JavaScript for Automation to load both string and html into the pasteboard (Slack looks for the HTML)
osascript -l JavaScript - "$markdown" "$html" <<'EOF'
  function run(argv) {
    ObjC.import('AppKit');
    const pb = $.NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard;
    pb.clearContents;

    // Set markdown as string, html as html
    pb.setStringForType(argv[0], $.NSPasteboardTypeString);
    pb.setStringForType(argv[1], $.NSPasteboardTypeHTML);
  }
EOF