One-Tap Photo → NotePlan

A Shortcut + plugin workflow for snapping (or choosing) a picture and logging it straight into NotePlan—complete with front-matter, Markdown image link, and caption.

Why I built this

KB on Discord asked for it and I was up for the challenge... Sounds like something others could use.

  1. take a new photo or pick one from yur photo library
  2. the shortcut creates a note in NotePlan with frontmatter
  3. drops the photo inline (visible at all platfomrs everywhere)
  4. appends a quick caption below the pic
  5. runs without additonal intervention on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

It's done with two tiny pieces: - This was tricky, I ain't gonna lie.

  • Photo2NP Shortcut – built in Apple Shortcuts
  • pasteClipboard NotePlan plugin – eight lines of JavaScript

Shortcut flow

# Action Key setting / output
1 Choose from Menu “Take a NEW photo” / “Select a photo”
2 Take Photo or Select Keep it nice in a variable → MyPhoto
3 Copy to Clipboard Copy to the clipboard
4 Ask for Text Prompt “Description of photo” → UserDesc can use MarkDown
5 Text Create the frontmatter and anything before the pasted image and description
6 URL Encode Encodes the front-matter block save it ina variable→ EncodedFM
7 Open URL Create the note - I use Photo and a time stamp (with ss seconds to keep it unique)
8 Run Plugin Command The plugin pastes the clipboard in the note
9 Copy to Clipboard we wait 3 seconds then clean load the caption to clipboard
10 Run Plugin Command Pastes it all again

Append to an existing note instead: replace step 8 with the note you need to update

Download files

Photo2NP.zip

Install the plugin

  1. NotePlan → Preferences → Plugins → … → Open Plugins Folder
  2. Create folder huertas.pasteClipboard
  3. Drop plugin.json and index.js inside
  4. Reload Plugins or restart NotePlan
  5. Verify with ⌘J → /pasteClipboard

Add the shortcut too...

not to the plugin folder... double click to install

One-time iOS permission

Optional if the paste command permission keeps coming up (like in the video above)

Settings → NotePlan → Paste from Other Apps → Allow
(now it' has permanent clipboard access so you never see the prompt again).

Make it yours,

Need Change
Use a fixed note Swap the URL for openNote?noteTitle=…
Different front-matter Edit the frontnmatter
Skip captions Remove step 4 and 8-10

Result

Your picture is there and I am here, enjoying the coffee you bought me