Quote and get markdown link

Showcases and Use Cases
1

Hello,
First, thank you for Hook!! I have wanted precisely this utility for years, and still can’t grasp how it’s not a built-in part of Mac OS.

One small shortcoming for me is being able to select text in a PDF, and have that text be the name of the markdown link that I paste into some other document. The quote feature within hook is nice, but if I’m taking many notes on a single paper I don’t really want the title of the paper appearing over and over in my notes. It’s better to have only the quoted text appear. So, I wrote this tiny applescript that copies the text in the clipboard and invokes hook to create a proper markdown link.

Usage:

  1. Select text in a pdf reader that supports hook markdown links. Skim, for example.
  2. Press cmd-c to copy your selected text to the clipboard
  3. Invoke the script (I use an alfred hotkey to launch it)
  4. Paste the markdown link, which is now in your clipboard, into whatever doc you like.

Here’s the script:

tell application “Hook”
set b to bookmark from active window
set the clipboard to “[” & the clipboard & “](” & address of b & “)”
end tell

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2

Welcome to the Hook Productivity Forum , @carlcasca . And thanks for that.

agreed. when we designed the feature we saw several options, and converged on one; but we agree other uses are also important. Glad you were able to use the automation to get what you want. That was our goal. We aim to publish a bunch of macOS services in 2022 that are based on Hook’s automation, to provide more functionality that can be in the app’s UI itself. We hope to see more sharing of macOS services for Hook.

2 Likes