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In gnome's screen shot program, the quick keys PrtScn captures the entire screen and alt+PrtScn captures the active window. Is there a way to script or set up the third capture option of a selected area?

Update: I don't seem to have this key already mapped... enter image description here

3
  • 2
    Which Ubuntu version?
    – ish
    Jul 31, 2012 at 14:52
  • 7
    in 16.04 There is already a short cut of shift-print Mar 16, 2016 at 21:13
  • This question was for 12.04. (It was a tag)
    – Rick
    Mar 16, 2016 at 21:42

7 Answers 7

156
  1. Open System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts
  2. Select Custom Shortcuts(you can go to Screenshot-s too and it will work)
  3. Click +
  4. Fill fields
    • Name to Take a screenshot of area
    • Command to gnome-screenshot -a or shutter -s(if u prefer shutter)
  5. Click OK
  6. Double-click on what you make and set shortcut Shift+PrtSc

— And that's all ... ;)


making command
settings shortcut

10
  • How should I do this on Lubuntu 12.04 ?
    – Neptunno
    Jul 31, 2012 at 16:51
  • open Sistem Settings -> Keyboard settings and follow steps @Halkinn, or go to chat and say what you can't get
    – hingev
    Jul 31, 2012 at 16:54
  • 3
    Ubuntu 12.04 has this shortcut built in out of the box now as per the answer below. Jun 11, 2014 at 18:30
  • 2
    In Linux Mint, it's Preferences -> KeyboardShortcuts, and the command you need is mate-screenshot -a Oct 31, 2016 at 19:14
  • 1
    Do you provide any CLI solution to map the shortkey with this command?
    – alhelal
    May 30, 2018 at 8:27
133

That shortcut is already built-in: Shift+PrtScr :)

The full-list of screenshot keyboard shortcuts is:

enter image description here

14
  • 2
    Thanks, but I don't seem to have that. Would you mind posting a screen shot of which command this is mapped to? I've included a screen shot of mine above in the update.
    – Rick
    Jul 31, 2012 at 14:49
  • 1
    Found it: gnome-screenshot -a
    – Rick
    Jul 31, 2012 at 14:57
  • 1
    that is only in ubuntu 12.04+, and @Richard i have posted answer
    – hingev
    Jul 31, 2012 at 15:03
  • 7
    Also works on Ubuntu 14.04 Jun 11, 2014 at 15:19
  • 2
    @israteneda In your Pictures folder (/home/yourname/Pictures)
    – Sumit
    Apr 14, 2020 at 9:47
6

While to above answers worked for me in Ubuntu; after switching to Lubuntu I noticed that the ShiftPrtScn was no longer working.

The following procedure fixed it for me. Since in Lubuntu the program scrot is used, I found that I had to add the following to the ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml:

<!-- Launch scrot with interactive select when Shift-Print is pressed -->
<keybind key="S-Print">
  <action name="Execute">
    <command>scrot -s</command>
  </action>
</keybind>

After the change do not forget to issue: openbox --reconfigure to activate the updates.

See the Lubuntu documentation for more details.

5

Gnome now includes a tool by default.

The previous Shift+Prt Scr seem to no longer work for me. Not sure if that is a regression.

But just pressing Prt Scr (Print screen) will bring up this UI, allowing you to snip:

Image courtesy omg! ubuntu! Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: Screenshot Tour

2
  • perfect! This is useful.
    – arilwan
    Oct 19, 2022 at 16:11
  • Thanks! This needs to go to the top!
    – thomasa88
    Dec 6, 2022 at 6:13
2

you can try this command from terminal if you have a problem with shortcuts.

sleep 5 && gnome-screenshot -a -c

Now open the window you want to take screenshot from and select the area after 5 seconds after the command execution.

sleep 5

makes the terminal waits 5 seconds before executing the command so you can go to the window you want within this while

gnome-screenshot -a -c

takes screenshot of an area and copy it to clipboard.

1
  • 1
    Copy to clipboard (-c) was exactly what I was looking for.
    – Miladiouss
    Apr 5, 2020 at 20:30
0

For xubuntu and xfce users:

Run Keyboard app from the launcher menu, go to Application Shortcuts, check current action for Print, if it's xfce4-screenshooter -f:

  1. add a new action: xfce4-screenshooter -r
  2. Set Shift+PrtScn for it
  3. Check
  4. Enjoy

If it's not xfce4-screenshooter - check the current tool how to run it in the "region screenshot" mode

1
0

To take screenshot from a selected area And copy to clipboard, just press:

Ctrl+Shift+PrtScrn

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