nbedos / termtosvg
Record terminal sessions as SVG animations
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Repository Summary (README)
PreviewNote: As of June 2020 I do not have time to maintain termtosvg anymore and this repository is now read-only.
termtosvg
termtosvg is a Unix terminal recorder written in Python that renders your command line sessions as standalone SVG animations.
Features
- Produce lightweight and clean looking animations or still frames embeddable on a project page
- Custom color themes, terminal UI and animation controls via user-defined SVG templates
- Rendering of recordings in asciicast format made with asciinema
Installation
termtosvg is compatible with Linux, macOS and BSD OSes, requires Python >= 3.5 and can be installed as follows using pip:
# Create virtualenv named '.venv'
python3 -m venv .venv
# Activate virtualenv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip3 install termtosvg
Then run termtosvg by calling either termtosvg or python3 -m termtosvg.
Various independently maintained, OS specific packages have been made available by the community:
| OS | Repository | Installation command |
|---|---|---|
| Archlinux | Arch | pacman -S termtosvg |
| FreeBSD | ports | |
| Gentoo | media-gfx/termtosvg | emerge media-gfx/termtosvg |
| macOS | Homebrew | brew install termtosvg |
| OpenBSD | ports | |
| NixOS | nixpkgs |
Basic usage
Start recording with:
$ termtosvg
Recording started, enter "exit" command or Control-D to end
You are now in a subshell where you can type your commands as usual. Once you are done, exit the shell to end the recording:
$ exit
Recording ended, file is /tmp/termtosvg_exp5nsr4.svg
Then, use your favorite web browser to play the animation:
$ firefox /tmp/termtosvg_exp5nsr4.svg
Finally, embedding the animation in e.g. a README.md file on GitHub can be achieved with a relative link to the animation:

See the manual page for more details.
Dependencies
termtosvg uses: