Setup screen print on Raspian(Wheezy)

This tutorial will show you how to add screen printing ability to Raspbian "wheezy". It should also work for the other Debian/LXDE versions out there also.

When you are done, you will be able to capture either 1) your entire Desktop: Now, in 5 seconds, in 10 seconds or 2) just a selected area of the Desktop.

To add the ability to create an image of your desktop or sections of it, we will need to create some directories, install a program called Scrot and add 4 scripts and 4 .desktop files.

Note: These instructions are hardcoded for the base installation userid pi. If you have are using a different userid, you will have to modify the code to reflect the userid you are using.

Create a bin directory. (If you already have this directory, ignore this step)

cd

mkdir bin

Create a images directory. (If you already have this directory, ignore this step)

cd

mkdir images

Download Scrot

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install scrot

Create 4 scripts in the bin directory.

cd ~/bin

touch scrprint-now.sh scrprint-5sec.sh scrprint-10sec.sh scrprint-select.sh

Open your favorite text editor and add this code to each of the files. All these scripts are variations on the same theme but for "completeness" sake, here are the four files.

scrotrprint-now.sh

scrot '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ & gpicview ~/images/$f'

scrprint-5sec.sh

scrot -d 5 '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ & gpicview ~/images/$f'

scrprint-10sec.sh

scrot -d 10 '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ & gpicview ~/images/$f'

scrprint-select.sh

scrot -s '%Y-%m-%d--%s_$wx$h_scrot.png' -e 'mv $f ~/images/ & gpicview ~/images/$f'

Now you need to make those shell scripts executable

chmod +x scrprint-now.sh scrprint-5sec.sh scrprint-10sec.sh scrprint-select.sh

As a shortcut, you could also do: chmod +x scrprint*

Create an applications directory in .local/share First let's check to see if it's there already:

cd ~/.local/share

ls

If you see the applications directory there already, cd into it, else

mkdir applications

cd applications

Add 4 new desktop files in the applications directory

Create the following 4 desktop files

touch ScreenPrint.desktop ScreenPrint5.desktop ScreenPrint10.desktop ScreenPrintSelect.desktop

Open your favorite text editor and add this code to each of the files.

ScreenPrint.desktop

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Name=Screen Print - Now

Comment=Scrot Screen Print

Categories=Screen Print

Exec=/home/pi/bin/scrprint-now.sh %U

StartupNotify=true

Terminal=false

ScreenPrint5.desktop

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Name=Screen Print - 5 seconds

Comment=Scrot Screen Print

Categories=Screen Print

Exec=/home/pi/bin/scrprint-5sec.sh %U

StartupNotify=true

Terminal=false

ScreenPrint10.desktop

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Name=Screen Print - 10 seconds

Comment=Scrot Screen Print

Categories=Screen Print

Exec=/home/pi/bin/scrprint-10sec.sh %U

StartupNotify=true

Terminal=false

ScreenPrintSelect.desktop

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Name=Screen Print - Selected Area

Comment=Scrot Screen Print

Categories=Screen Print

Exec=/home/pi/bin/scrprint-select.sh %U

StartupNotify=true

Terminal=false

These will show up in the Main Menu under the Other category.

Give it a try!

When you run these scripts, the image will be stored in the ~/images directory and GPicView (AKA: Image Viewer) will pop up and show you the image.

The first three just run as advertised.

For the "Select" option, click it in the Main Menu, then with the mouse, click, then drag over the area you want to capture. When you release the mouse button, whatever is in the "selected box" will be captured.