Greenshot Help

Version 0.8

Contents

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

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 systray.
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.

If you want to capture an exact area, it might be easier to select the initial screenshot area slightly larger and to crop the screenshot afterwards using Greenshot's image editor.

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.

Capture fullscreen Control + Print

Creates a screenshot of the complete screen.

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 systray 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.

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 and arrow A.
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.
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.

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

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.

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 key. You can cancel cropping by clicking the cancel button or hitting ESC.

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

Output settings

Printer settings

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.