AutoTypewriter

A set of Python utilities to automatically type out text, primarily in typing competitions.

Requirements

General

• Python 3
• Windows or macOS

For OCR capabilities

• Tesseract Open Source OCR
  • Windows installers
  • Installers for other platforms
• Environment variable TESSERACT_PATH set to point to the Tesseract OCR executable
• Optional: Tesseract Open Source OCR trained data for non-English languages

For paste.ee functionality and 10fastfingers.com/10ff.net integration

• A Chromium-based browser, with the 10slowfingers extension installed
• A valid application key from paste.ee

Usage

1. Clone this repository and enter the new directory

   git clone https://github.com/samuel-gamelin/AutoTypewriter && cd AutoTypewriter
   

2. Install the python dependencies located in the requirements.txt file (demonstrated here using pip3). The use of virtualenv is recommended.

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Run the autotypewriter.py script with your desired options. The following are some examples.

   Run the typewriter using OCR capabilities (this is the default behaviour, unless the --paste-key option is specified), making it take screenshots of the bounding box on a repeated basis each time after typing out the contents (with a 0.08s interval between each character and a 0.02s delay between each screenshot) of a single screenshot. This will continue until the contents of the screenshots of the bounding box being taken do not change. A common use case for this scenario would be a rolling block of text. The bounding box is a rectangular area of the screen that is formed between the two points which you select by clicking with your mouse after the script commences execution.

   python3 autotypewriter.py --repeat --delay 0.02 --interval 0.08
   

   Run the typewriter using OCR capabilities with Vietnamese trained language data, making it take a single screenshot of the selected bounding box and typing out its contents (with a 0.08s interval between each character) followed by entering the Tab+Enter hotkey.

   python3 autotypewriter.py --interval 0.08 --ending-keystroke 'tab+enter' --lang vie
   

   Run the typewriter using paste.ee integration with a 0.08s interval between each character being typed out. Once the script has loaded the contents of your latest paste, which you would have submitted using the 10slowfingers Chrome extension, a message is sent to standard output and typing will begin when you perform a click.

   python3 autotypewriter.py --paste-key <your paste.ee application key> --interval 0.08
   

Known Limitations

It straight up doesn't work on Linux.