How do I capture program screens to a file or print them?

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Unix, Xenix and ODT General FAQ

How do I capture program screens to a file or print them?

Updated September 2009

Unix/Linux text screens

To capture text output, use "script". By default, the file will be called "typescript", but "script myfile" will use that name instead. Press CTRL-D when you are finished recording.

You can play back keystokes with "xmacro". See Replace Your Show Desktop Button, which notes that capturing CTRL-ALT-d was the major problem solved by xmacro.

MacOSX

("script" applies to Terminal sessions)

Command-Shift-3 (whole screen) and Command-Shift-4 (portion of screen) will create "Picture x" (x is 1 to whatever). Because of better features and control, I prefer Skitch, though Voila has even more features.

Preview also offers screen capture - it's down at the bottom of the File menu.

For a movie of your screen actions, try Jing (also available for Windows).

X11

To capture X screens, the "xwd" program is simple to use. Open an xterm, type "xwd > file" and (after pressing ENTER), just click on the window you want to capture. You can also specify a windo with "xwd -id wid", where "wid" is the resource id to be selected. The resulting file can be printed using "xpr" or manipulated by graphic programs like "Gimp" and others if you need to save it as .gif or some other format.

For KDE, there is KSnapshot and gnome-screenshot for Gnome. Both also recognize the PRT-SCRN key

To record screen actions on Linux, try RecordMyDesktop, a "desktop session recorder".

Windows

For a "user friendly" OS, Windows has had really awful screen capture in the past. You press PRT-SCRN, which appears to do nothing. You then have to open a program like Microsoft Paint, hit CTRL-V to paste in the shot, and then you can do whatever you want with it.

Vista and Win 7 have "Snipping Tool", which is supposedly much better (but I've never used it).

This Screenpresso looks good.

Old SCO

Tom Melvin contributed this:

No idea where I got this from, it's pretty old (Xenix days). Works only on the console.

:
# Shell script to screen dump
# This will only work at present on the  main console

oldstty=`stty -g`
stty -echo ixon ixoff -ixany
/bin/echo '\033[2i\c'
head -25 > /tmp/screen.$$
stty $oldstty

# Ok now output the file to the printer
echo "\f" >>/tmp/screen.$$
lp /tmp/screen.$$
rm /tmp/screen.$$

Or get Chip Rosenthal's prtscrn from ftp.jpr.com

Jean Pierre Radley points out:

W/r to Melvin's comment about the escape sequence, man screen and see:

   MC (Media Copy)                         CSI p1 i   ps        mc0
   Causes all or part of the screen to
   be sent to the pass-through printer.
   Parameter p1 indicates how much of
   the screen to send to the printer.
   Currently, only p1=2 is supported,
   which sends the entire screen
   contents. Future versions of scoansi
   may support other values.