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Version 1.2.10 - Edit this page under Github

Contents

  1. Creating a screenshot
    1. Capture region
    2. Capture last region
    3. Capture window
    4. Capture fullscreen
    5. Capture Internet Explorer
  2. Using the image editor
    1. Drawing shapes
    2. Adding text
    3. Highlighting things
    4. Obfuscating things
    5. Cropping the screenshot
    6. Enlarging the screenshot
    7. Adding graphics to a screenshot
    8. Re-using drawn elements
    9. Exporting the screenshot
  3. The settings dialog
    1. General settings
    2. Capture settings
    3. Output settings
    4. Printer settings
  4. Want to help?
    1. Consider a donation
    2. Spread the word
    3. Submit a translation

Preface

Greenshot is running as an own process in the background. To reach the application, you can right click the Greenshot icon in the notification area or directly take a screenshot by pressing one of the defined keys. Several editor windows can be open in parallel.

Creating a screenshot

You can create a screenshot either by using the Print key on your keyboard
or by right clicking the Greenshot icon in the notification area.

There are several options for creating a screenshot:

Capture region Print

The region capture mode allows you to select a part of you screen to be shot.

After starting region mode, you will see a crosshair pointing out the mouse
position on the screen. Click and hold where you want one of the corners of your
screenshot to be. Still holding down the mouse button, drag the mouse to define
the rectangle to be shot. When the green rectangle covers the area you want to
be captured in your screenshot, release the mouse button.

You can use the Space key to switch between region and window mode.
Holding down the Shift key while capturing fixes one dimension of the selection rectangle.

If you want to capture an exact area, you can use the Arrow keys to adjust the mouse cursor position pixel-wise, or by 10 pixels if you hold down the Ctrl key. Hit Return to apply the start/end position of the selected region. You can toggle the magnifying glass by hitting Z.

Capture last region Shift + Print

If you did a region or window capture before, you can capture the same region again using this option.

Capture window Alt + Print

Creates a screenshot of the window which is currently active.

The settings dialog offers an option not to capture
the active window right away, but allowing you to select one interactively.
If this option is selected, you may select a window by clicking it (As in
region mode, Greenshot will highlight the area
that will be captured).
If you want a child window to be captured (e.g. a browser
viewport (without toolsbars etc.) or a single frame of a web page using framesets)
point the mouse cursor to the window and hit the PgDown key. After
doing so, you can select child elements of the window to be captured.

Capturing context menus on their own is different: using the "Capture window"
shortcut would make the context menu disappear, and obviously the same would happen
if you used Greenshot's context menu in order to create the screenshot. If you want
to capture a context menu you have just brought up by right-clicking anything,
simply activate region mode Print, then press the Space key.

Capture fullscreen Control + Print

Creates a screenshot of the complete screen.

Capture Internet Explorer Control + Shift + Print

Comfortably creates a screenshot of a web page currently opened in Internet Explorer.
Use Greenshot's context menu to select the Internet Explorer tab to capture, or hit
Crtl + Shift + Print to capture the active tab.

Using the image editor

Greenshot comes with an easy-to-use image editor, providing a handy featureset
to add annotations or shapes to a screenshot. It even allows to highlight or
obfuscate parts of your screenshot.

Greenshot's image editor may not only be used for screenshots. You can also
open images for editing from a file or from clipboard. Simply right click
the Greenshot icon in the notification area and select Open image from file
or Open image from clipboard, respectively.

By default, the image editor will be opened whenever a screenshot is
captured. If you do not want to use the image editor, you can disable this
behavior in the settings dialog.

If one or more editor windows are already open and Greenshot is configured to open the destination picker for new screenshots, you can briefly hover the mouse cursor over the entry Open in image editor to reveal a list of all open editor windows to choose from. The new screenshot will be inserted as separate object into the selected editor.

Drawing shapes

Select one of the shape drawing tools from the toolbar on the left hand side
of the image editor or from the Object menu. There is also a key assigned
to each tool for your convenience.

Available shapes are: rectangle R, ellipse E, line L,
arrow A and freehand line F.

Click, hold down the mouse button and drag to define position and size of the shape.
Release the mouse button when you are done.

You can move or resize existing shapes after selecting the selection tool
ESC from the toolbar. The elements can also be moved by using the Arrow keys, also in combination with the Shift key.
For every element type there is a specific
set of options available to change the look of the element (e.g. line thickness,
line color, fill color). You can change the options for an existing element after
selecting it, but also for the next element to be drawn after selecting a drawing tool.

To select a color at the color picker with the pipette, press the pipette and move the mouse around while still holding down the left mouse button. That way you can select a color somewhere from the whole screen, not only Greenshot.

You can select multiple elements for editing or positioning at a time. In order to select multiple
elements, hold down the Shift key while clicking the elements.

If you want to draw equilateral shapes (e.g. force a rectangle to be a square) hold
down Shift while drawing. When drawing lines or arrows, holding down Shift
results in the line's angle being rounded in steps 15°.

You can also use Shift if you want to resize an existing object maintaining it's aspect ratio.

When drawing or scaling, you can hold down Ctrl to have the object anchored in
it's geometrical middle. I.e. the object is resized in the opposite direction, too. (This
is very handy if you want to draw an ellipse around something on your screenshot.)

Adding text

Usage of the text tool T is similar to the usage of the
shape tools. Just draw the text element to the desired
size, then type in the text.

Double click an existing text element to edit the text.

Hit Return or Enter when you have finished editing.

If you need to insert line breaks within a text box, hit Shift + Return or
Shift + Enter. Ctrl + Backspace delete the previous word, Ctrl + A selects to complete text.

Highlighting things

After selecting the highlight tool H, you can define the area to be
highlighted exactly like you would draw a shape.

There are several options for highlighting, which you can choose from by clicking
the leftmost button in the toolbar on top:

Obfuscating things

Obfuscating parts of a screenshot is a good idea if it contains data which is not
intended for other people to see, e.g. bank account data, names, passwords or faces on images.

Use the obfuscate tool O exactly like the highlight tool.
Available options for obfuscation are:

* Depeding on the performance of your computer, applying a blur effect might slow down
Greenshot's image editor. If you feel the image editor reacting slowly as soon as a
blur is applied, try reducing the value for Preview quality in the toolbar or
decrease the value for Blur radius.

If the blur performance is still too bad for you to work with, you might prefer
to use the pixelize effect instead.

Cropping the screenshot

If you only need a part of the screenshot you have captured, use the crop tool C
to crop it to the desired area.

After selecting the crop tool, draw a rectangle for the area of the screenshot you want
to keep. You can resize the selected area like any other element.

When you are content with your selection, use the confirm button in the toolbar or hit
the Enter or the Return key. You can cancel cropping by clicking the cancel button or hitting ESC.
Ctrl + - immediately crops the area to match all existing elements.

Auto-Crop: If you need to crop a border of solid background color from your screenshot,
simply choose Auto-Crop from the Edit menu and Greenshot will automatically
select the area for cropping.

Enlarge screenshot

In order to enlarge the screenshot, hit Shift + +, which will add 25 pixels to all four sides.

Adding graphics to a screenshot

You can simply add graphics or images to your screenshot by dragging and dropping an image
file into the editor window. You can also insert screenshots of other windows by selecting
Insert window from the Edit menu. A list of all open windows appears,
allowing you to select one for insertion. Insert an image from the clipboard by Ctrl + v works as well.

Re-using drawn elements

If you find yourself using the same or similar elements on most of your screenshots
(e.g. a textfield containing browser type and version, or obfuscating the same
element on several screenshots) you can re-use elements.

Select Save objects to file from the Object menu to save the current
set of elements for re-using it later. Load objects from file applies the
same elements to another screenshot.

Exporting the screenshot

After editing the screenshot, you can export the result for different purposes,
depending on your needs. You can access all export options through the File
menu, the topmost toolbar or via shortcuts:

After saving an image from the editor, right-click the status bar at the bottom of
the editor window to either copy the file path into the clipboard or open the
containing directory in Windows Explorer.

The settings dialog

General settings

Capture settings

Output settings

Printer settings

Plugin settings

Displays a list of installed Greenshot plugins. Select one from the list and click Configure in order to access
the configuration of a plugin.

Want to help?

Currently, we do not need help in development. However, there are several things you
can do to support Greenshot and the development team.

Thanks in advance :)

Consider a donation

We are putting a lot of work into Greenshot and spending quite some time to provide
a good piece of software for free and open source. If you feel
that it makes you more productive, if it saves you (or your company)
a lot of time and money, or if you simply like Greenshot and
the idea of open source software: please consider honoring our effort by donating.

Please have a look at our home page to see how you can support the Greenshot development team:

http://getgreenshot.org/support/

Spread the word

If you like Greenshot, let the people know: tell your friends and colleagues about Greenshot.
Your followers, too :)

Rate Greenshot in software portals or link to our home page from your blog or website.

Submit a translation

Greenshot is not available in your preferred language? If you feel fit for translating
a piece of software, you are more than welcome.
If you are a registered user at sourceforge.net, you can submit translations to our
translations tracker.

Please make sure there is no existing translation for your language on our
downloads page. Also check our translations tracker,
there might be a translation in progress, or at least in discussion.

Please note that we will only provide a translation on our downloads page if it has
been submitted through your sourceforge.net user account. Since we most probably are
not capable to understand your translation, it is good for other sourceforge users
to be able to contact you about improvements or enhancements in case of a new Greenshot
version.

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