pacetype

Pacetype 🐢

Simulates typing text, including emojis and special characters, with adjustable delays for specific characters. Uses pyautogui.typewrite() for speed with standard characters and the clipboard for robust cross-platform compatibility with complex characters (like emojis) that often cause issues with direct key simulation.

🤔 Why Pacetype?

Automating keyboard input with libraries like pyautogui can be fast for standard text but tricky when dealing with emojis or complex Unicode characters. Direct key simulation (pyautogui.typewrite) doesn't always handle these complex characters correctly across different OSs and input methods. Conversely, simulating copy-paste for every character is reliable but slower.

pacetype offers a hybrid approach:

• It detects standard, printable characters and types them rapidly using pyautogui.typewrite().
• When it encounters a complex character (emoji, symbol, non-printable), it switches to the clipboard method:
  • Copies the single complex character to the system clipboard.
  • Simulates the standard "paste" keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V).
  • Waits for a specified interval (if provided) only after pasting a complex character.

This hybrid method provides the speed of typewrite for normal text and the reliability of the clipboard for special characters.

🚀 Installation

pip install pacetype

✨ Simple Usage

Using pacetype is straightforward. Just import it and call it directly with the text you want to type.

import pacetype
import time

# Give yourself a moment to switch to the target window
print("Pacetyping in 3 seconds...")
time.sleep(3)

# Type text with complex characters. Delay only applies after 👋 and 🐢.
# Standard characters are typed quickly.
pacetype("Hello World! 👋 Fast standard text. Slow emoji... 🐢", interval=0.5)

# Type text rapidly (no interval delay for clipboard pastes)
pacetype("Typing emojis quickly! ✅🚀", interval=0.0)

# Type standard text very fast (uses typewrite, interval is ignored)
pacetype("This uses pyautogui.typewrite and is fast.", interval=0.5) # interval has no effect here

print("Typing finished!")

Key Points:

• Hybrid Typing: Standard characters are typed using the fast pyautogui.typewrite(interval=0). Complex characters (emojis, etc.) are pasted via the clipboard.
• Conditional Delay: The interval argument (defaulting to 0.0) applies only as a time.sleep() pause after a complex character has been pasted using the clipboard. It does not affect the speed of standard character typing.
• Clipboard for Complexity: The clipboard method ensures greater reliability for emojis and a wide range of special characters that typewrite might fail on.

⚙️ Features

• Hybrid Typing: Fast typing for standard text, reliable clipboard pasting for complex characters.
• Emoji & Unicode Support: Reliably types emojis and complex characters via the clipboard.
• Conditional Delay: Control paste speed for complex characters with the optional interval argument.
• Simple Callable API: Just import pacetype and use pacetype("your text", interval=...).
• Cross-Platform: Works on Windows, macOS, and Linux (thanks to pyperclip and pyautogui).

⚠️ Important Notes

• Window Focus: The target application window (e.g., text editor, browser, chat) must have keyboard focus when pacetype() is executing.
• Clipboard Use: Pacetype uses the system clipboard when pasting complex characters. Any content you manually copy while it's pasting such a character might be overwritten. The clipboard will contain the last complex character pasted after the script finishes. Standard typing does not affect the clipboard.
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Assumes standard Ctrl+V (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+V (macOS) paste shortcuts are active.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome!

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.